During the night, poor, foolish Dick had picked off the splints from his leg, and now it was as bad as ever.

"I shall have to perform a surgical operation." he said.
I did not know what he meant, so I watched him when, after breakfast, he brought the bird down to his mother's room.

She held it while he took a pair of sharp scissors, and cut its leg right off a little way above the broken place.

Then he put some vaseline on the tiny stump, bound it up, and left Dick in his mother's care.

All the morning, as she sat sewing, she watched him to see that he did not pick the bandage away.
When Carl came home, Dick was so much better that he had managed to fly up on his perch, and was eating seeds quite gayly.