She was disappearing in the doorway before the dazed boy burst into speech.
“Come back! come back!” he shrieked. “It’s mine! Bring it back! oh, bring it back!”
But his only answer was a little flouting laugh and the mad whir of wings against the wires.
“Oh, Birdie! Birdie!” piteously called the child, the familiar name coming to his lips in place of the new one, and as the fleeing footsteps on the stairs were lost he dropped back among his pillows with a great sob. “Dear Birdie!” he moaned, “my precious Birdie!”
In that moment despair seized his soul. If only he could have pursued to save his pet! But, ah! his feet had forgotten how to walk, and all at once realizing his utter helplessness he put his hands to his face and shed the first bitter tears of his joyous life.
Then, with a suddenness that caught away his breath, came the pain,—the ugly pain which for weeks had held itself so far off that he had almost forgotten how cruel it could be, and now he groaned with the torture of it.
So his brother found him, white and sobbing.
“What’s up, kiddie?” Blue knelt beside him, and took the cold little hands in his own. “Tell me, old feller! Is’t the big pain?”
The child nodded. For a moment he could do no more. Anguish held the words back.
“Birdie’s—gone!” he finally sobbed out.