How glad you must be!" Then they all laughed, and Nat and Dodo began telling about their uncle's room and all the books and birds in it, and about the book he had promised to write for them, until Rap looked so bewildered that Olive was obliged to explain things a little more clearly to him.

"Come home with us," cried Nat and Dodo, each seizing him by a hand, "and perhaps uncle will tell you all the names we must learn--head, throat, wings, and what all the other parts are rightly called--and then we can go around together and watch birds." But as Rap turned over and scrambled up with the aid of his crutch, they saw that he had only one leg, for the trouser of the left leg was tied together just below the knee.
Acting as if they did not notice this, they led the way to the house, going close to the fence that divided the orchard from the road, because there was a little path worn there.
"What is the whole of your name ?" asked Dodo, who could not keep from asking questions.
"Stephen Hawley," he answered.

"My mother is Ann Hawley, who lives by the mill, and does all the beautiful fine white washing for everybody hereabouts.

Don't you know her?
I suppose it's because you have just come.

I believe my mother could wash a cobweb if she tried, and not tear it," and a glow of pride lit up his face.
"But you said a little while ago that your name was Rap." "Everybody calls me Rap, because when I go along the road my crutch hits the stones, and says 'rap--rap--rap.'" "Here's a dead bird," said Nat, picking something from under the fence.
"It's a White-throated Sparrow," said Rap, "and it's flown against the telegraph wire in the dark and been killed." "We will take it to uncle and ask him to tell us all about it." "Yes, yes," said Dodo, "we will all go"-- and Rap hopped off after the other children so quickly that Olive had hard work to keep up with him.
This time Nat and Dodo did not hesitate outside the study door, but gave a pound or two and burst into the room.
"Uncle Roy, Uncle Roy, we have seen two birds and written down about them, but we didn't quite know what to call the front part where the neck ends and the stomach begins, or the beginning of the tail, and Olive says there are right names for all these parts.