to be indignant is to be angry in a good cause. if you lose your temper and give way to anger because things do not suit you, you are not indignant; you are simply angry. but if anger wells up in your heart because of harm or injustice which is done to some one else, or even to yourself, then you become indignant.

farmer brown's boy had spent all his spare time down in the garden watching bob white and his family. in fact, he had been there so much that all the bob whites had come to look on him as harmless if not actually a friend. they just didn't pay him any attention at all, but went about their business as if he were nowhere about. and their business was ridding that garden of bugs and worms and seeds of weeds in order to fill their stomachs. what tickled farmer brown's boy was that the bugs and worms of which they seemed the most fond were the very ones which did the most harm to the growing plants.

over beyond the garden was a field of wheat. you know from wheat comes the flour of which your bread is made. now there is a certain little bug called the chinch-bug which is such a hungry rascal that when he and a lot of his kind get into a field of wheat, they often spoil the whole crop. they suck the juices from the plants so that they wilt and die. farmer brown's boy had heard his neighbors complaining that chinch-bugs were very bad that year, and he knew that they must be by the looks of the wheat on the farms of his neighbors. but farmer brown's wheat looked as fine as wheat could look. it was very plain that there were no chinch-bugs there, and he often had wondered why, when they were so bad in the fields of his neighbors.

farmer brown's boy noticed that bob white and his family spent a great deal of time in the wheat-field. one day he noticed bob picking something from a stem of wheat. he went over to see what it might be. of course bob scurried away, but when farmer brown's boy looked at that wheat-plant he found some chinch-bugs on it. then he knew what bob had been doing. he had been picking off and eating those dreadful little bugs. and he knew, too, why it was that their wheat-field was the best for miles around. it was because bob white and his family hunted for and ate those bugs as fast as they appeared.

“hurrah for you! you're the greatest little helpers a farmer ever had!” cried farmer brown's boy, and hurried off to tell farmer brown what he had found out.

so the summer passed, and the cool crisp days of autumn came. the wheat had been harvested and the vegetables gathered and stored away. jack frost had begun to paint the maple trees red and yellow, the garden was bare, and the stubble in the wheat-field a golden brown. the little feathered people who do not like cold weather had flown away to the sunny southland, led by ol' mistah buzzard. striped chipmunk, chatterer the red squirrel, and happy jack the gray squirrel were busy from morning till night storing away seeds and nuts on which to live through the long cold winter. these were glorious days, and bob white loved every one of them.

“son,” said farmer brown one morning, “those bob whites must be fat with the good living they have had. seeing that we have fed them off the farm all summer, don't you think that it is their turn to feed us? i think broiled bob white on toast would taste pretty good. the shooting season begins next week, so i suppose you will get out your gun and shoot a few of those bob whites for us.” there was a twinkle, a kindly twinkle in his eyes as he spoke.

but farmer brown's boy didn't see that twinkle. his face grew red. a hot anger filled his heart. he was indignant. he was very indignant to think that his father should ever hint at such a thing. but he didn't forget to be respectful.

“no, sir!” said he. “i wouldn't shoot one of them for anything in the world! they don't owe us anything; we owe them. if it hadn't been for them, we wouldn't have had half a crop of wheat, and our garden would have been just as poor as those of our neighbors. i'm not going to shoot 'em, and i'm not going to let any one else shoot 'em if i can help it, so there!”