Larks
IN THE MEADOW
If Jack's big black dog, Nero, had not chanced to snatch Phyllis's rag doll by the head and run away with it this story would have never been written.
You see, Nero bounded straight across the meadow and Phyllis, fearing that she would lose the doll, ran shrieking after him.
Nero was only playing, and soon dropped the doll and ran off. Phyllis regained her property and started to return, when a bird rose from the grass at her feet with a queer whirring sound.
Phyllis looked up at the bird and then down to the spot from which it had flown.
In another moment she would have stepped in the nest. This meadow lark's nest was unlike any other Phyllis had found. Indeed, it could scarcely be called a nest at all.
But when she looked at it Phyllis thought what a wise little bird the meadow lark must be to choose such a place for the nest.
Had Phyllis not chanced upon it in just the way she did she might have looked all day long and not discovered it.