"No, indeed; I wouldn't go for any thing; and I do wish you would let the poor birds be. Just think how badly you'd feel if you was a bird, and had a nice little nest of your own, to find your eggs all stolen."
"Ho, ho," laughed Jack, "here's a young parson, preaching to me, who wasn't too good to help himself to a bird, a few weeks ago, when the old ones did all they could to keep him away from the nest. Why didn't you think then how you'd feel if you'd been the bird?--ha?"
Frank did not answer; but he thought that he had suffered sufficiently for his thoughtlessness, without being taunted with it. He tried to persuade Jack not to rob any more birds' nests; but Jack only laughed at him, and told him to run home to his sister, like a good little boy. Frank was the oldest, and he felt rather vexed at the sneering way in which Jack spoke; but he made no angry answer.
At school time, Frank and Fanny went to school again; but Jack played truant, as he had done in the morning, and went down in the meadows, with the boys, whom he had told Frank he was going with.
Miss Norton asked Frank, if he knew what had kept Jack away from school all day, and he repeated to her, as nearly as he could, the conversation which had taken place between them that noon.
The next morning, when Jack came into school rather late, Miss Norton called him up to her, and told him to read out loud, this piece, from the Village Reader.
"HAVE YOU SEEN MY DARLING NESTLINGS?"
A Mother robin cried:
"I cannot, cannot find them,
Though I've sought them far and wide