down in the eddying leaves and covered his ears. But this time he
knew what it was at last, and in a moment he was up and running,
not away, but fast as his little legs could carry him after the
last bird that he saw hurtling away among the trees, with a birch
branch that he had touched with his wings nodding good-by behind
him.

There is another association with this same bird that always
gives an added thrill to the rush of his wings through the
startled woods. It was in the old school by the cross-roads, one
sleepy September afternoon. A class in spelling, big boys and
little girls, toed a crack in front of the waster's desk. The
rest of the school droned away on appointed tasks in the drowsy
interlude. The fat boy slept openly on his arms; even the
mischief-maker was quiet, thinking dreamily of summer days that
were gone. Suddenly there was a terrific crash, a clattering
tinkle of broken glass, a howl from a boy near the window. Twenty
knees banged the desks beneath as twenty boys jumped. Then,
before any of us had found his wits, Jimmy Jenkins, a red-headed
boy whom no calamity could throw off his balance and from whom no
opportunity ever got away free, had jumped over two forms
and was down on the floor in the girls' aisle, gripping something
between his knees--

"I've got him," he announced, with the air of a general.

"Got what?" thundered the master.

"Got a pa'tridge; he's an old buster," said Jimmy. And he
straightened up, holding by the legs a fine cock partridge whose