Everyday Adventures

these tendencies, I cannot say that up to date I have unearthed much treasure. To be sure, there was that day when I found a shiny quarter in the mud on my way to scho

not tell," were two of them, while another was a manly query unanswered across the years which read, "How about a kiss?" Although this treasure-trove gained me a fleeting popularity, yet, like all treasure,

heart, and c

uds is the sun

slight sensa

ing myself unduly, I may claim to have fairly deserved my position. Starting as a mere friar in the band of one Robin Hood, my abilities as an outlaw brought me rapidly to the front. Thereafter, when that band was reorganized, I was unanimously offered the position once held by that implacable character who knew the Sesame Secret and pursu

lection that the Band met. The Captain spoke with the

re that there were no spies about, "I have just heard that there is a treasure not many mil

ipper of water, under the impression that her favorite fear of fire had at last come to pass. Close behind her was the Quartermaster-General, sometimes known as Mother, while almost at t

tain looked quite ashamed as he explaine

ger and you'll shout and yell and scream and bellow

he clumped disappointedly down the st

uld frequently hit a barn-door at five paces. Trottie oiled up the air-rifle, which he was only allowed to use in windowless wildernesses. Henny-Penny kept up such a fusillade with his new pop-gun, that the Captain threatened to send him forth unarmed on the morrow if he heard but one more pop. Alice-Palace's practice, however, was the most spectacular. She

rfect silence within fifteen minutes,

sted Corporal Alice-Palace, as she started

he cardinal grosbeak-the adventure-call of the Band. Followed thumps, splashings

, "who for the sake of their wives and families wish to draw

p Henny-Penny, "nor any family 'c

nd. The Captain said that it made the blood run faster

from the house-line toward the Land of the Wild-Folk, where Romance still dwells and adventures lurk behind every bush. A t

keep a list of all birds seen and heard, with notes on the same. Even Corporal Alice-Palace, who was only six, carried a

had seen to it that the Band carried with them the very finest lunch that

a little as he sings. It took them longer to learn the quieter song of the vesper sparrow, with the flash of white in his tail-feathers. His song always starts with two dreamy, contralto notes and dies away in a spray

the whole Band halted and drank in the most advanced military manner, to wit, by bending the rims of their felt hats into a cup. This method the Captain

largest of the sparrows and the sweetest and rarest singer of them all. A moment later a song sparrow sang. When he stopped, the strain was taken up by the fox sparrow in another key. Three times through he sang the twelve-note melody of the song sp

As the road bent in toward Darby Creek, there sounded the watchman's rattle of the first kingfisher they had heard that year; and as they came to the creek itself, a vast blue-gray bird with a l

ek before, which accounted for the joy-songs which sounded from every tree-top. Until she comes, the robin's song is faint and thin and infrequent. Beyond the creek they heard the "Quick, quick, quick," of the f

whistling wings. Then the Captain told the Band of a brave mother-dove whose nest he once found on the last day of March. It was only a flat platform of dry sticks in a spruce tree, and held two pearly-white eggs. The day af

ICKER

d a friend of his had stopped a pair of robins from nesting over a hammock hung under an apple tree, by nailing a stuffed cat right beside their bough. Whereupon the two robins, when they came the next morning, fled with loud chirps of dismay. When tw

hapes. Suddenly Honey did a remarkable performance in the standing-back-broad-jump, finishing by rolling clear to the foot of the bank. Right where he had stood lay a hale and hearty specimen of a blacksnake nearly five feet long. Evidently it had only just awakened from its winter-sleep, for there were clay-smears on the smooth, satiny scales, and even a patch of clay between the golden, unwinking eyes. Only the flickering of a lo

it firmly in the eye. If the pupil is oval-drop it. Perhaps, however," he went o

d the captive changed considerably. Said snake was now legal tender, to be cherished accordingly. It was the resourceful First Lieutenant Trottie who solved all difficulties in regard to t

ING DOVE

of the field the green turf sloped down to a long level stretch, covered by a thin growth of different trees, centring on a thicket through which trickled a little stream. Near the fence on a white-oak tree some ill-tempered ow

e grove the Capta

ve heard rumors that there is a clue to

ny, however, who boosted by Alice-Palace, fumbled back of the threatening old sign and drew out a crumpled slip of grimy paper. On it had been laboriously inscribed i

who remembered that a tulip tree has square leaves, and it was he who found the message which read: "I am buried under a stone which stands between a spice-bush and a white-ash tree." They all knew the spice-bush, with its britt

e beagles in check for a long time. Corporal Alice-Palace at last spied the bleached little basket-nest at the end of a low limb. Inside was a bit

rite in lemon-juice, which makes an invisible ink that

, the paper was held as close to the blaze as possible. The Captain had the right idea. As the paper bent under the heat, on its white surface brown tracings

a tippy tree-trunk. Half hidden in the bushes above, a gaunt stone house stared down at them out of empty window-sockets like a skull. Through the thicket and straight up the slope the Band charged, with such speed that the Captain was hard put to keep up with his gallant officers. They never halted until they stood at the threshold of the House itself. Under

joists made a rude ladder. Up this the Band clambered to the first tier of joists, witho

greens, no one could tell what dreadful, dripping secret might be concealed underneath. For a minute the stranger looked uneasily around the shadowy room, and when his eye caught sight of the Captain's hat, he started back and peered into every corner, while the Band stood taut and tense just over his unsuspecting head. At last, however, evidently convinced that the ha

hat! Run fo

the doorway and sprinted down the slope, scattering dandelion greens at every jump, and disappeared in the thicket be

e Black Dog," murmured

rottie, "kind of s

n the night when Billy Bones died. Sidling along the beams in the wake of the Captain, they came to what remained of a crumbling staircase. One by one they passed up this until they r

gold and silver nuggets rattled down on the dry boards, while the Band gasped at the sight of so much sudden wealth. A moment later a series of crunching noises showed that the treasu

es have become. They knew you couldn't use a bag of doubloo

ptain down the steep stairs and the steeper ladder. Through the lilac bushes he led them around to the far side of the House. There the stairway had disappeared, and most of the

use, this room still stood untouched and with its flooring unbroken. Even the walls, plastered a deep blue, showed scarcely a crack on their surface. Best of all, fronting the open dormer of the window, was a long,

y spring. The Band felt that they occupied a strong and strategic position. A drop of some twenty feet sheer from the broken flooring behind them to the ground protected them against any rear attack, a

aster-General had merited promotion and decoration and citation and various other military honors, by reason of the unsurpassable quality of the rations for which she was responsible. When these were topped off by th

ext to General Washington, had probably been most nearly responsible for the final success of the patriot arms. It was Uncle Jake who made General Putnam get off his horse into the mud and give the countersign. It was Uncle Jake who shot the Hessian who used to stand on an earthwork and make in

ond later," continued the Captain impressively, "he wished he hadn't. Something rose right up underneath him, and the next thing poor old Uncle Jake knew, he was astride a big black bear, going down hill like mad-riding bear-back as it wer

tree," hazard

hen Uncle Jake drew his hunting-knife and stabbed the old bear dead ri

mong the bushes, on a low branch the Captain saw six strange birds, all gold and white and black, with thick, white bills. Never had the Band seen him so excited before. He told them that the strangers were none other than a company of the rare evening grosbeaks, which had come down from the far Northwest, which had never before been reported in that county, and which few bird-students ever meet in a whole lifetime, although he had found a

et, swee-eet." Westering down the sky sank the crescent new moon, with blazing Jupiter in her train. As the Band climbed Violet Hill and swung into the long lane which ended in home, they heard the last and loveliest bird-song of that whole dear