Meg found it first, and then Jud lent her his jack-knife and showed her how to take it up so that the roots would not be injured. Then he left her for a minute while he went back to get a paper cup from Linda to plant it in, and when he came back he found her backed up against a tree and looking frightened.
"What scared you?" he asked quickly. "Did you see a snake, Meg?"
"No," she whispered. "I don't know what it was. But it stared and stared at me, Jud."
"Well, where did you see it?" demanded Jud briskly. "Let me have a whack at it with this branch. Where'd you see it, Meg?"
"In the hole in this tree," answered Meg. "I was shaking more dirt off the fern when I looked up and there it was jiggling at me."
"Where?" asked Jud again, a bit impatiently. "I don't see any hole."
"I'm standing over it," said Meg, "so the thing can't get away."
Meg, you see, was frightened, but not too frightened to be interested and curious about a strange animal.
"I'm sure it's an animal, 'cause it moves," she told Jud, as she stood aside to let him look in the hole.
Jud put his hand in the hole--it was an old dead tree and hollow at the top--and drew out something soft and fluffy.
"Just as I thought," he chuckled. "It's a baby owl."
"Oh, how cunning," cried Meg, coming closer and venturing to put a finger on the bunch of feathers. "But what a funny face, Jud!"
Indeed the baby owl looked like a very young and foolish monkey as it sat in Jud's hands and rolled its head and stared aimlessly.
"He's pretty near blind," Jud explained. "In the daytime owls can hardly see at all. I suspect there's a nest in this old tree. Want to hold it for me while I feel?"
Meg was certainly not afraid of a baby owl, and she took it tenderly. Sure enough, Jud knew what he was talking about--he put his arm away into the tree trunk and brought out two more little owls.
Twaddles and Dot had come up by this time, and they were perfectly entranced with the queer little birds.
Jud carefully put the baby owls back. Then they planted the fern in the paper cup, found Bobby, who was trying to fish with a breadcrumb tied to a string, and told him about the owls, and then they heard the wagon coming for them.
"Have a good time?" asked Peter, as he helped them all in and the wagon started its noisy trip home. Peter was eating one of the sandwiches they had saved for him and looked very contented.