230 
OUR HOME BIRDS. 
“ Poor Pussie !” said Edith commiseratingly : “ I 
am so glad that she got away !” 
“ But she needn’t have eaten a little bird,” sug- 
gested Clara, who had no sympathy with the fond- 
ness of cats for feathers. 
“ Perhaps,” said her governess, “ when I tell you 
what another eagle did you may think it a good 
thing that there should be one less in the world. 
This bird was evidently disposed to vary its usual 
food ; and although the affair happened so long ago 
that the child, if living, is more than grown up, it 
took place in our neighboring State of New Jersey. 
‘ A woman, who happened to be weeding in the gar- 
den, had set her child down near to amuse itself 
while she was at work, when a sudden and extraodi- 
nary rushing sound and a scream from her child 
alarmed her, and starting up she beheld the infant 
thrown down and dragged some few feet, and a large 
bald eagle bearing off a fragment of its frock, which, 
being the only part seized and giving way, providen 
tially saved the life of the infant.’ ” 
“ Oh,” exclaimed Malcolm in great excitement, 
“wouldn’t I have been mad, though, if it had been 
Edie? I would have shot the hateful eagle right 
through the heart.” 
To be sure, his weapon was only a pop-gun, and it 
is not likely that the eagle would have noticed it ; 
