1 8 What Birds Have Done With Me 



and he whispered it softly to himself as he almost 

 reverentially put her on the ground, and saw her 

 vanish into the under-growth. 



Next morning when they went after the cat- 

 tle, and for many succeeding mornings, little hands 

 scattered wheat along the logging road, for a 

 wild bird that had both a local habitation and a 

 name. 



Before the end of the week, in which the Lord 

 sent him the quail, and he tasted of the tree of 

 knowledge at almost the same instant, isn't that 

 a fine mixture? he did something that goes to 

 prove that a little knowledge may be a very dan- 

 gerous thing. The breakers were now on the last 

 five acres. His interest had not flagged and he 

 was still in pursuit of the plow and the oxen. The 

 grackles had come to regard him as part of the 

 out-fit, and Pete and old Hill proved themselves 

 to be fine play-fellows. When a thing happened 

 that came very near sending a foolish little boy 

 to dwell with those things that live under ground, 

 where his father had told him everything would 

 finally return. That he escaped being trampled to 

 death in the virgin soil in which he had so de- 

 lighted, by the very oxen he had driven and petted, 

 both Pete and old Hill agreed was nothing short 

 of a God's miracle. Swinging around on the 

 northeast corner where there was a little sand 

 knoll, right under the feet of "Bob" and "Harry," 



