“I was very happy in my soft, warm nest, with Mr. Red, and four of the prettiest little birds you ever saw just hatched and wanting a mother’s care so badly. But one morning I saw coming down the river one of those big boats, full of people, who kept firing at the poor alligators sunning themselves in the warm spring air. At last the boat stopped, and some of the men got out and began to look around and fire at anything they saw; and one shot hit me under my wing, so that I could not fly, but dropped to the ground, half dead with pain and fright, but still having sense enough to be glad that it was I who was hurt instead of Mr. Red, who flew away to the top of the very tallest palm-tree in sight, where he sat and watched while a man picked me up and said: “‘See, she is not dead; she is only wounded. I shall take her to my wife at the hotel. She has wanted a Red-bird so much.’ “What a hotel was, or where he meant to take me, I did not know, and for a time I must have been unconscious, for the next I knew I was on the boat covered over with a kind of wire screen, which kept me a prisoner. I could not get away, though I beat my head against the screen until it ached almost as hard as the place under my wing. “Oh! what a change it was from my lovely nest among the oranges, and magnolias, and jasmines, to that dreadful wooden box in which they put me at the hotel, and which they called a cage. I think my new mistress meant to be kind to me, for she stroked my feathers very gently, and called me a ‘poor little thing,’ and brought me so many things to eat. But I could touch none of them, I was so home-sick and lonely, and my heart was aching so for the dear home up the river, and the little birdies there, who were sure to cry for me when the dark night came on and I was not there to shelter them. Would Mr. Red do it? I wondered, and I was afraid he wouldn’t; for, though the very best of all the Red-birds on the St. John’s, he did not always like to be bothered with the children, especially when he was tired and a little cross.” “But he did, though,” interrupted Mr. Paroquet. “He took care of them for quite a while after you went away. I used to see him hunting worms, and seeds and things; and he’d go every day to the top of that palm you spoke of, and watch to see if you were not coming back. After awhile—well, you remember old Mr. Red, whose nest was near yours on a sour orange-tree, and whose pretty little grand-daughter, Spotted-Wing, with the shining feathers and so many airs, you did not fancy much? “Yes, I remember her,” Mrs. Red answered very sadly, I thought, and Mr. Paroquet continued: “She used to fly up to that palm, too, and balance herself way out on the very tip of the longest green fan, and help him watch for _you_, because she was so anxious for you to come back and relieve him of his family cares, and then her eyes were younger than his, and could see farther, you know.”