"Oh, I didn't find THAT in the woods. It was before I went up the hill at all."
"A crow tied up—Look a-here, boy, what are you talkin' about? Where was that crow?" Perry Larson's whole self had become suddenly alert.
"In the field 'Way over there. And somebody—"
"The cornfield! Jingo! Boy, you don't mean you touched THAT crow?"
"Well, he wouldn't let me TOUCH him," half-apologized David. "He was so afraid, you see. Why, I had to put my blouse over his head before he'd let me cut him loose at all."
"Cut him loose!" Perry Larson sprang to his feet. "You did n't—you DIDn't let that crow go!"
David shrank back.
"Why, yes; he WANTED to go. He—" But the man before him had fallen back despairingly to his old position.
"Well, sir, you've done it now. What the boss'll say, I don't know; but I know what I'd like ter say to ye. I was a whole week, off an' on, gettin' hold of that crow, an' I wouldn't have got him at all if I hadn't hid half the night an' all the mornin' in that clump o' bushes, watchin' a chance ter wing him, jest enough an' not too much. An' even then the job wa'n't done. Let me tell yer, 't wa'n't no small thing ter get him hitched. I'm wearin' the marks of the rascal's beak yet. An' now you've gone an' let him go—just like that," he finished, snapping his fingers angrily.
In David's face there was no contrition. There was only incredulous horror.