"Don't go too near," said Addison. "He will strike with his beak. You know I read to you, from Audubon, how a gentleman came near losing an eye from the sudden stroke of a wounded heron. They always aim for the eye."
He put out the butt of the gun, extending it slowly toward the bird. The heron watched it till within a couple of feet, then struck quick as thought, darting its bill against the hard walnut of the gunstock.
Meanwhile the other herons had flown off to the side of the mountain, half a mile away. Now and then one would come back and circle about over the pines.
Addison desired to examine a nest. One of the pines had low knots on the trunk, within six feet of the ground, and a little higher up drooping branches. There was a nest near the top. Halstead offered to climb up to it. Addison and I lifted him up to the knots. He climbed up by these to the lowest limbs, and then went on from branch to branch toward the top.
"Two eggs!" he shouted, peeping over into the great nest.
"Don't break them!" cried Addison. "Bring them down if you can!"
Halstead took them out and put them into his loose frock, then, before we guessed what he was going to do, he had upset the nest from the branches in which it rested, and it came bumping down through the boughs to the ground. The fall shook it to pieces considerably, yet we could see what its shape had been. There were some sticks in it three and four feet long, as thick as a man's wrist. The inside was lined with dry grass. It was large enough to allow the old heron to double its long legs and sit in it comfortably. Halse now came down with the eggs. They were of a dirty white color, the shells rough and uneven. Theodora imagined that they would be as large as goose-eggs; they were not larger than those of a turkey,—about two and a half inches in length by one and a half in width.
"I shall carry them home and hatch them under a hen," said Addison.
"I guess the old hen will cackle when she sees what she has hatched," exclaimed Ellen, laughing.
While we were looking at them, a noise in the brush startled us, and, turning hastily, we saw a young man wearing a glazed cap standing at the border of alders, near the brook. His appearance startled us somewhat. Presently we noticed that he was beckoning, evidently to Halstead, and that the latter seemed very uneasy; he bent over the eggs and pretended not to see any one. But the fellow continued loitering there; and at last Halse jumped up, saying, "I'll see what he wants, I guess," and went out to the alders. The man stepped back and they both disappeared among the bushes.