The miller caught three of them down there last winter, only one died and the other two aren't a bit happy; the male doesn't sing and the female has a cough.

The miller's wife doesn't care much for them; they're a bother to feed, she says--have to have meal-worms, and rice with the hulls on, and all that." "Why doesn't she let them out ?" asked Olive.
"'Cause she thinks that maybe some of the people that come fishing will buy them." "How much does she ask for them ?" said the Doctor.
"She said if they ever moulted out and got any decent feathers she could ask three dollars for them, but the way they were looking a dollar was all she could expect." "Children, shall we have a Liberty Festival this morning?
How would you like for me to buy these birds and bring them here, so that you can see them, then--then what ?" "Open the cage and let them out and see what they will do!" screamed Dodo, jumping up and down.
"May I go down to buy them ?" begged Nat.
"You will have to take me, too," said Olive.
"Can I open the door ?" asked Dodo.
"Here is the dollar--now go, all together," said the Doctor, putting his hands over his ears; "but if you make so much noise the birds in the river woods will mistake your kind intentions and think you are a family of wildcats." In less than half an hour the party returned, Nat carrying the cage, which was only a box with a bit of wire netting over the front.
"No wonder poor Mrs.Cardinal has a cough, living in this dirty box," said Olive.

"See, father, only one perch--and I don't believe the poor things have ever had a bath given them." "That is the saddest part of caging wild birds," said the Doctor.

"Not one person in fifty is willing to give them the care they need.

Put the cage under those bushes, Nat.
"I began by asking, Where do we find this bird?
Living in Florida in sunshine, among the shady redwoods of Kentucky, and in all the bitterness of our northern winters.