Love's Pursuit by Siri Mitchell Page A

were their numbers that several trees broke from their weight. And then finally, nests built and wood occupied, they turned their attentions to our crops. And that we could not abide. At church the following Sabbath a day was chosen on which the town would launch an assault upon their number.
    On that morning Father and Nathaniel left the house, clubs in hand. Mary and I trailed them, taking a half dozen sacks and our own clubs with us. They went to trap a single bird; Mary and I went in hopes of clubbing its brothers.
    Pairs of men and boys spread through the wood looking for a bird to snatch. Some, like Father, did it by launching a net over a nest. Others did it with persuasion, by laying out a line of grain and enticing the creatures down from their nests.
    Once Nathaniel had clambered up a tree and brought down a bird, Father took a needle to hand in order to sew its eyes shut. But once needle had pierced skin, the creature shrieked and beat its wings in panic.
    Nathaniel clutched the bird tighter.
    Muttering, Father finished the job. And then he fastened the bird to a platform by its feet. “You can let him go.”
    Nathaniel dropped his hands as the bird’s wings beat a tattoo against the air.
    Father looked round at Mary and me. “Grab your clubs and hold yourselves still.”
    We did, all of us, until at length the birds began to stir from their nests, to rid their wings of sleep and take to the air. At that moment, Father raised the platform up above his head and then dipped it down toward the ground. Upon the going down, the pigeon fluttered its wings, looking for all the world as if it were coming to rest.
    Seeing one of their own flapping toward the ground, the group of pigeons decided that he knew something they did not. And, as a group, they dove and joined him, settling themselves down upon the ground. And it was at that point the slaughter began.
    ’Twas not difficult in the way of sport. The birds followed each other as a group. Too late they learned of their folly. They were easily entrapped by a net thrown over them and then just as easily felled by the blow of a club. From that first group alone we must, all of us, have bagged a dozen or more birds.
    After a long morning’s work, we returned home for dinner. Mother met us in the yard, hefted the bags from our hands, and placed them beside the door. “They’ll rest there well enough until we’ve readied for them.”
    We had turned to go inside when Nathaniel spied a woman hurrying in our direction. We waited until she made her approach.
    It was Mistress Wright, Simeon’s mother, come over to offer us her bag of birds. “From Simeon, my son.”
    Mother smiled. “We have some bags already.”
    “And we have five. Loaves and fishes. Feed the masses.”
    As Mother did not move to take it from her, she pressed it into my hands.
    I could do nothing other than take it. As I did, I saw that Simeon Wright was watching us from the road. And so I tried to smile in his direction.
    I handed the bag to Mother, and she placed it with our own. After dinner Father hauled a board from his shop and set it upon two trestles. Mother doled out the sacks, one for Mary and me, another for herself. Then she turned her pigeons out upon the board and began plucking the feathers from them. “Such small birds to cause such devastation.”
    “If only the trapped bird could warn them off.” It seemed a piteous end to a creature so sleek and soft. Even if they did try to eat our grain.
    Mother snorted. “And a good thing that it cannot.”
    “They can see the slaughter, but they follow one another to it anyway. Why can they not see they have judged incorrectly?”
    She shrugged. “Because the scene is so deceptive. They cannot fathom that things are not what they seem.”
    “ ’Tis pitiable.”
    Mother bid me back to work with her nod.
    She finished her sacks and Mary and I finished ours soon after. That left only the sack from Mistress Wright.
    Mother clucked over it as