"I d'no, sir. P'r'aps I might."

"Well, see if you can't. I'll give you half a dollar for one."

"Will you? Then I'll try."

And off Dick started for the woods, without stopping for any further words on the subject.

The two individuals introduced are a good-natured farmer in easy circumstances, and a bright boy, the son of a poor woman in the neighbourhood.

As Dick Lawson was hurrying away for the woods, his mind all intent upon finding a nest of young mocking-birds, and despoiling it, he met a juvenile companion, named Henry Jones.

"Come, Harry," said he, in an animated voice, "I want you to go with me."

"Where are you going?" asked the friend.

"I am going to look for a mocking-bird's nest."

"What for?"

"To get a young one. Mr. Acres said he would give me half a dollar for a young mocking-bird."

"He did?"

"Yes, he did so!" was the animated reply.

"But don't he know that it's wrong to rob bird's nests!"

"If it had been wrong, Harry, Mr. Acres wouldn't have asked me to get him a bird. He knows what is right and wrong, as well as anybody about here."

"And so does Mr. Milman, our Sunday-school teacher; and he says that it is wicked to rob bird's nests. You know he has told us that a good many times."

"But Mr. Acres knows what is right as well as Mr. Milman, and if it had been wrong, he'd never have asked me to get him a bird. And then, you know, he says he will give me half a dollar for a single one."

"I wouldn't touch a bird's nest for ten dollars," rejoined Henry Jones, warmly.

"I would then," replied Dick, from whose mind the promised reward had, for the time, completely dispelled every tender 

 Prev. P 6/57 next