"Mother, Mother! Come quick," Andy called from outside the screen door. "You'll never guess what we have."
Mother came to the door. "What is it?" she asked. She knew she could not guess. It was hard to tell what the boys would come up with next. Then she saw the young pigeon in Andy's hand. "Oh, Andy, where did you get that?" she asked.
"Out in the barn," Andy said. "Since we filled the haymow we don't have to climb high to get to the pigeon nests. I wanted to climb up to see if any of them had eggs. Just before I got to a nest, this pigeon flew out. It couldn't fly very well, and landed on the hay. Daniel caught it. It didn't even try to get away."
"What are you going to do with it?" asked Mother. Then without waiting for an answer, she asked another question. "Where is Daniel now?"
"He went to the woodshed to get a basket. We're going to put the pigeon under a basket until we have a cage ready for it." The boys had everything planned out. "You know those rabbit cages Dad bought at a sale? We are going to fix one of those for the pigeon."
Mother touched the back of the frightened young bird. "Be very careful you don't hurt it," she said. "Poor little thing. Don't you feel sorry for it?"
"Why should we feel sorry for it?" asked Daniel. He came up the walk carrying a basket. "We are going to give it feed and water. We will take good care of it."