They were pretty and prudent and obedient; they walked about near their mother, and when she called to them "pitpalac!" they ran quickly back to her. Once, in the month of June, when the peasants came to reap the corn, the eldest of the chicks did not run quickly at his mother's call, and, alas, a boy caught him under his cap. He alone could tell the overwhelming fear he felt when he found himself clasped in the boy's hand; his heart beat like the watch in my pocket. Luckily for him an old peasant begged him off. "Let him go, Marin, it's a pity on him, he will die. Don't you see he can hardly move, he is quite dazed." When he found himself free, he fled full of fear to the quail to tell her what had befallen him. She drew him to her and comforted him, and said to him: "Do you see what will happen if you do not listen to me? When you are big you can do what you like, but while you are little you must follow my words or something worse may overtake you." And thus they lived, contented and happy. The cutting of the corn and the stacking of the sheaves shook a mass of seeds on to the stubble which gave them food, and, although there was no water near, they did not suffer from thirst because in the early morning they drank the dew-drops on the blades of grass. By day, when it was very hot, they stayed in the shade of the plantation; in the afternoon, when the heat grew less, they all went out on to the stubble, but on the cold nights they would gather in a group under the protecting wings of the quail as under a tent. Gradually the fluff upon them had changed into down and feathers, and with their mother's help they began to fly. The flying lesson took place in the early morning towards sunrise, when night was turning into day, and in the evening in the twilight, for during the daytime there was danger from the hawks which hovered above the stubble-field. Their mother sat upon the edge and asked them: "Are you ready?" "Yes," they answered. "One, two, three!" And when she said "three," whrrr! away they all flew from the side of the plantation, as far as the sentry-box on the high road, and back again. And their mother told them they were learning to fly in preparation for a long journey they would have to take when the summer was over. "We shall have to fly high up above the earth for days and nights, and we shall see below us great towns and rivers and the sea." One afternoon towards the end of August, while the chicks were playing happily near their mother in the stubble, a carriage was heard approaching, and it stopped in the track by the edge of the plantation. They all raised their heads with eyes like black beads and listened. A voice could be heard calling: "Nero! to heel!"