CHAPTER IX.
THE PRACTICE.
After supper on that same day, Owen left the house, and with a quick step followed a path which led over the hills through a large cedar grove. Here he mounted an old stump and gave a shrill whistle. No answer came but the distant echo. So he sat down upon the stump and began to mend a wide-mouthed sack, which he carried under his arm and which the mice had evidently been using for their habitation, having gnawed spacious doors and miniature windows in many places.
Every few seconds the prevailing stillness was broken by the whiz of myriads of wings, as flock after flock of robins settled in the deep glade for the night. It has been asserted by some naturalists that the robin is not a migratory bird. It is true that a few can be found in the thicket and barnyard during the winter months, but by far the greater number follow the swallow and blue-bird to warmer climes. Toward the latter part of autumn they pass through the Middle States, not by thousands only, but by millions. The thick cedar glades in central Kentucky were a favorite resort for them in their passage, and at night countless numbers roosted in the dark evergreen branches.
It was to secure a number of robins that Owen had ventured out. After repairing the sack with strips of elm bark, he again mounted the stump and gave another whistle. Soon Martin Cooper issued from among the cedars, at the same time waving a lantern above his head. He, too, carried a sack.
When it was quite dark, and the robins had settled down for the night, the boys crept stealthily along into the thickest part of the glade, carrying the lighted lantern. Now the fun began. Climbing a few feet up the trees and opening their sacks, Owen and Martin commenced to capture the affrighted robins. Many of the birds were so dazed by the light that they sat perfectly quiet, and were thrust into the sacks as easily as if they were apples hanging from a bough. Many, too, startled by the swaying branches, flew madly into the thicket, and by their cries spread the alarm throughout the evergreen domain.
Soon the whole glade was alive with the flutter and cries of the robins. Darting from tree to tree, they frightened those yet undisturbed. Robins screamed piteously. Robins yelled like street boys at the sound of the fire alarm. Old robins were demanding silence, and young robins were asking advice. Captured robins were fluttering in their prisons, and affrighted robins, dropping suddenly among the branches around the lantern, shared the fate of their doomed companions. Robins, robins, robins; singing, screaming, crying, laughing, up and down, back and forth they flew, until the sacks were filled and the boys departed.
An hour later all was quiet again among the evergreen. Old robins dozed quietly on the branches, while young robins on their first trip to the South dreamed of the rice-fields and orange-groves of the tropic zone. And still an hour later not less than four hundred captured robins, though imprisoned in a coop, dreamed that they were roosting among the cedars; while Owen and Martin in their snug beds dreamed of the shooting-match, and their future victory over Coon-Hollow Jim.
"Helloo, Mart! What made you so late?" said Owen as Martin entered the field chosen as the place of practice.