"Humph! she won't keer for it. You'd better kill it. Betty won't be bothered with it."
"She may give it away, or let it loose, or do what she pleases with it, then," was the boy's reply.
I learned from their further conversation that the hunter sold his game to another man who cured the skins for shipment to the city. To this dealer the bag which held my dead companions was taken and I saw them no more. Arriving at the hunter's home I was put under a bucket that I might not escape, while my captor prepared my prison for me. It was an almost needless precaution for I had been so cramped between his fingers that I feared I could never again use my legs or wings. Just before putting me in my rude prison house he brought a pair of shears and bade Betty clip my wings.
"Oh, I'm afraid it will hurt it!" she exclaimed, pushing away the extended scissors.
"Nonsense, you ninny! What if it does hurt it?" and he roughly knocked my bill with his hand.
"Now that's real mean, Joe. You're a scaring it to pieces. Here, Dickey Downy, I'm going to give you a pretty name if you belong to me; let me hold you. Why, its little heart is a thumping as if 'twould burst through its body."
Joe was reluctant to loosen his grasp, and between being pulled first one way and then the other by the two children, I was badly bruised. Finally I was permitted by my young captor to enter the cage, where I sank, trembling and exhausted, to the floor, and remained there all night, being too sore to ascend the perch.
As may be imagined I was very sorrowful and unhappy. The separation from my mother and my dear companions, coupled with the fear that I might never again wing my blithesome flight through the bright blue sky, but spend the balance of my life in this miserable cell, filled me with despair. Frantic but useless were my efforts to escape. In vain I beat my head against the hard steel bars; in vain I endeavored to crowd my body between them. My prison was too secure.
At length I found that fluttering back and forth buffeting my wings against the sides of my cell only injured me and availed nothing. Then it was I wisely made the resolution to endure my imprisonment as cheerfully as possible. I soon began to regain my strength and spirits and, save that I was deprived of my liberty, I had no special fault to find for some days with my treatment from Betty, who was now regarded as my owner and keeper.
I was always glad when Joe was absent from home, for he was vicious as well as rough. One of his favorite tricks was to dash my cage hard against the wall, laughing boisterously as he did so to see how it frightened me. The concussion was frequently so great that my claws could not hold to the perch, and I would be tossed helplessly from side to side with my feathers ruffled and broken. There was but one thing Joe liked better than this cruel sport, and that was gingerbread; and my tortures were often stopped by Betty's producing a slice of this delicacy which she had saved from her own luncheon for this particular purpose. When I discovered that Joe could be bought off with gingerbread it can be imagined that I was always glad on the days when the pungent odors of cinnamon, ginger, and molasses issued from the cook-stove. It was a surety of peace, of a cessation of hostilities as long as the cake lasted.