sunshiny day I opened his door and opened the window, and I says: 'Scoot!
The hull world's yourn!'"

"And didn't he go?" asked the girl, watching the rapt face of the old man.

"Did he go? Right out through that window with a song that'd break your
heart to hear, 'twas so sweet. He pitched on the old apple tree
yonder--the August sweet'nin'--and I thought he'd bust his throat
a-tellin' of how glad he was to be free out there in God's sunshine an'
open air."

"He came back, I see," said Louise thoughtfully.

"That's just it!" cried Cap'n Abe, shaking his head till the tarpaulin
fell off and he forgot to pick it up. "That's just it. He come back of
his own self. I didn't try to ketch him. When it grew on toward sundown
an' the air got kinder chill, I didn't hear Jerry singin' no more. I'd
seen him, off'n on, flittin' 'bout the yard all day. When I come in here
to light the hangin'-lamp cal'latin' to make supper, I looked over there
at the window. I'd shut it. There was Jerry on the window sill, humped
all up like an old woman with the tisic."

"The poor thing!" was Lou's sympathetic cry.

"Yes," said Cap'n Abe, nodding. "He warn't no more fit to be let loose
than nothin' 'tall. And I wonder if _I_ be," added the storekeeper.
"I've been caged quite a spell how.

"But now tell me, Niece Louise," he added with latent curiosity, "how did
you find your way here?"