“Don’t you love to kill fies and butterfies and see them wiggle?” asked the child. She was so small she could not speak plain yet; but her bright black eyes twinkled, and she showed her wicked little teeth.
Before Kitty could answer she heard the tramp of small feet running. The next moment she was surrounded by a crowd of children, who cried: “Come along, come along! We are going to rob a nest. There are two new-born birds with yellow beaks, and there are three blue-speckled eggs. The mother bird is sitting on them. The father bird is watching. We’ll kill him with a stone.”
“We’ll blow the eggs and string them for a necklace,” cried a girl.
“I won’t come!” exclaimed Kitty indignantly. “How can you be so wicked?”
A pitiless hand seized hers. It was so strong in its unkindness it pulled her along.
“Let me go! let me go!” entreated Kitty as the cruel children pushed and pulled her.
Run she must; run with the children. Oh! the cruel children, with hands strong to hurt, with feet nimble to give pain, with shrill voices to jeer and mock.
Presently Kitty saw a hedge, and in it a pretty nest, so cunningly built. It lay among the fresh green leaves. A baby prince could not have a daintier cradle, set among shadier curtains, than had those callow birds. The father bird was fluttering above uttering cries of reproach. A thousand other birds were singing; Kitty understood their song.
They sang of their love for their pretty nestlings, of their pride in the nest they built in the sweet spring weather.
“Twe—et! twe—et! bur—rrr!” sang the father bird, with all his heart in his throat. “Shame upon the boys and girls who find sport in robbing the homes we and our mates make so patiently!”