to see if the label had been turned so that he could read it. But it
never was, so he never learned the bird's name.

After passing this for a year or more, he formed a desperate plan. It
was nothing less than to _go inside_. It took him some months to
screw up courage, for he was shy and timid, but oh! he was so hungry
for it. Most likely if he had gone in openly and asked leave, he
would have been allowed to see everything; but he dared not. His home
training was all of the crushing kind. He picked on the most curious
of the small birds in the window--a Sawwhet Owl then grit his teeth
and walked in. How frightfully the cowbell on the door did clang! Then
there succeeded a still more appalling silence, then a step and the
great man himself came.

"How--how--how much is that Owl?"

"Two dollars."

Yan's courage broke down now. He fled. If he had been told ten cents,
it would have been utterly beyond reach. He scarcely heard what the
man said. He hurried out with a vague feeling that he had been in
heaven but was not good enough to stay there. He saw nothing of the
wonderful things around him.




II

Spring