CHAPTER VIII
THE PRISON
Like a long-caged bird
Thou beat'st thy bars with broken wing
And flutterest, feebly echoing
The far-off music thou hast heard,
—Arthur Eaton.
This was my last day of liberty for many, many months. The very next evening I was stunned by a stone thrown by a small boy who accompanied a hunter. Picking me up he ran toward his father, who was coming back from the neighboring swamp with his loaded gamebag.
"This bird isn't dead," said the boy, holding me up to view, "and I'm going to put it in a cage and train it to talk."
"Crows are the kind that talk. That's no crow nor no starling neither," answered the man. "Better give it to me to kill. I'll pay you a penny for it."
"Naw, you don't," and the boy drew back, at the same time closing his hand over me so tightly that I feared I would be crushed. "I'm going to keep him, I tell ye. He's mine to do what I please with, and I ain't agoing to sell him for a penny, neither."
So saying he ran along in front of his father till we reached the mule cart. Into this clumsy vehicle they climbed and soon we were jogging over the sandy road to their home. As we drove along the man computed, partly to himself, partly aloud, how much money the contents of his game-bag would bring him. The result must have been satisfactory, for presently he observed:
"Purty fair day's wages, but I believe I could make more killing terns and gulls than these birds. Bill Jones and the hunters up on Cobb's Island last year got ten cents apiece for all the gulls they killed. Forty thousand were killed right there. Oh, it's bound to be a mighty good business for us fellows as long as the wimmen are in the notion, that is, if the birds ain't all killed off."
"Air they getting scarce?" questioned the boy. The man ejected a mouthful of dark, offensive juice from between his grizzled whiskers before replying.
"Yes, purty tol'ble scarce. So much demand for 'em is bound to clean the birds out. There used to be heaps of orioles an' robins an' larks an' blackbirds an' waxwings through the country, but they're getting played out too, since the wimmen tuk to wearin' 'em on their bunnets."
"Well, no woman sha'n't have my bird for her bunnet," and the boy gave me another friendly pinch that nearly broke my bones. "I'm a going to put it in that old cage that's out in the shed and give it to Betty, if she wants it."
"Humph! she won't keer for it. You'd better kill it. Betty won't be bothered with it."
"She may give it away, or let it loose, or do what she pleases with it, then," was the boy's reply.
I learned from their further conversation that the hunter sold his game to another man who cured the skins for shipment to the city. To this dealer the bag which held my dead companions was taken and I saw them no more. Arriving at the hunter's home I was put under a bucket that I might not escape, while my captor prepared my prison for me. It was an almost needless precaution for I had been so cramped between his fingers that I feared I could never again use my legs or wings. Just before putting me in my rude prison house he brought a pair of shears and bade Betty clip my wings.
"Oh, I'm afraid it will hurt it!" she exclaimed, pushing away the extended scissors.
"Nonsense, you ninny! What if it does hurt it?" and he roughly knocked my bill with his hand.
"Now that's real mean, Joe. You're a scaring it to pieces. Here, Dickey Downy, I'm going to give you a pretty name if you belong to me; let me hold you. Why, its little heart is a thumping as if 'twould burst through its body."
Joe was reluctant to loosen his grasp, and between being pulled first one way and then the other by the two children, I was badly bruised. Finally I was permitted by my young captor to enter the cage, where I sank, trembling and exhausted, to the floor, and remained there all night, being too sore to ascend the perch.
As may be imagined I was very sorrowful and unhappy. The separation from my mother and my dear companions, coupled with the fear that I might never again wing my blithesome flight through the bright blue sky, but spend the balance of my life in this miserable cell, filled me with despair. Frantic but useless were my efforts to escape. In vain I beat my head against the hard steel bars; in vain I endeavored to crowd my body between them. My prison was too secure.
At length I found that fluttering back and forth buffeting my wings against the sides of my cell only injured me and availed nothing. Then it was I wisely made the resolution to endure my imprisonment as cheerfully as possible. I soon began to regain my strength and spirits and, save that I was deprived of my liberty, I had no special fault to find for some days with my treatment from Betty, who was now regarded as my owner and keeper.
I was always glad when Joe was absent from home, for he was vicious as well as rough. One of his favorite tricks was to dash my cage hard against the wall, laughing boisterously as he did so to see how it frightened me. The concussion was frequently so great that my claws could not hold to the perch, and I would be tossed helplessly from side to side with my feathers ruffled and broken. There was but one thing Joe liked better than this cruel sport, and that was gingerbread; and my tortures were often stopped by Betty's producing a slice of this delicacy which she had saved from her own luncheon for this particular purpose. When I discovered that Joe could be bought off with gingerbread it can be imagined that I was always glad on the days when the pungent odors of cinnamon, ginger, and molasses issued from the cook-stove. It was a surety of peace, of a cessation of hostilities as long as the cake lasted.
All went fairly well for a little while, but as the novelty of possession gradually wore off, my little jailer grew negligent and left me much of the time without water or food. Frequently my throat was so parched from thirst that I could not utter a protesting chirp. I knew no other way to attract attention to my wants than to flutter to the bars and thrust out my head; unfortunately this action was attributed to wildness and a desire to escape, and I was allowed to suffer on.
"That bird is the most annoying, restless thing I ever saw," complained Betty's mother one evening when I was thus trying to tell them my cup was empty. "It spends all its time poking its head through the wires or thrashing around in the cage, instead of getting up on its perch and behaving itself quietly as a decent bird should."
"Do you reckon it's sick?" suggested Betty, and she came to my cage and looked at me attentively.
"Reckon it's hungry, you mean," growled her father, who was in one corner of the kitchen cleaning his gun.
"She never feeds it any more," commented the mother. "What's the use of keeping it? I'd wring its neck and be done with it. Betty don't keer a straw for it."
"Yes, I do," cried the little girl. "I'll get it something to eat this very minute."
These spasms of attention only lasted a day or two, however, when my young keeper would lapse into carelessness, and again I would be allowed to go with an empty crop and a dry throat. My beautiful plumage grew rusty from this irregularity and continual neglect, and although I am not a vain bird, my dingy appearance was a source of daily grief and mortification to me. When Betty was not too busy playing she sometimes hung my cage outside the door of the cottage, but often for days together through the pleasant summer I was left hanging in the kitchen, sometimes half-choked with smoke or dampened with steam. No wonder I drooped and ceased my cheerful song.
The days when I was put out of doors were indeed gala days to me. Many families of young chickens lived in the back yard, and the pipings of the little ones and the scoldings of the mothers when their children ran too far away from them, were always amusing to listen to and gave me something to think about which kept my mind off my own troubles.
I liked to watch the hens with their fuzzy broods tumbling about them, or with the older chicks when they scratched the ground and ceaselessly clucked for them to come to get their share of what was turned up in the soil; meanwhile they kept a sharp lookout with their bright eyes to see that no outsider shared in the feast. And how angrily did they drive it away should a chick from another brood heedlessly rush in among them to get a taste.
One old hen in particular interested me very much. I noticed her first because of her pretty bluish color and the dark markings around her neck, but I soon came to pity her, for she made herself quite unhappy and seemed to take no comfort in anything. She was usually tied to a tree by the leg, and although her string was long it seemed always just a little too short to reach the thing she wanted. To make matters worse she had a bad fashion of rushing wildly around the tree and getting her string wound up shorter and shorter until at last she could not stir a step, but would hang by one foot foolishly pulling as hard as she could. It always seemed to me that her chickens were more disobedient than the rest, because they knew she could not get to them nor follow them.
Joe sometimes slyly threw pebbles at this blue hen to scare her and make her jump and pull at the string, when he thought his mother was not looking. As pay for his sport he often got his ears cuffed, for though his mother did not seem to notice how cruelly he teased me, she would not allow him to frighten her fowls.
"Don't you know that a hen that's all the time skeered won't lay?" was the lesson she tried to impress on him as she punished him.
But the thing I liked best of all was to see Betty's seven white ducks crowd up to the kitchen door every time any one appeared with a pan of scraps. Such gabbling and quacking, such pushing and such stepping on each other and on the chickens, in their eagerness to get there first, was almost laughable. In fact, the pink-toed pigeons that walked up and down the ridge of the barn roof, did make fun of them openly. Had I not known the ducks were well fed and so fat they could scarcely waddle, I might have thought they were really hungry, but I soon discovered that they were simply greedy.
Standing on tiptoe and stretching up their long necks they often seized the food before it had a chance to fall to the ground. By this good management they usually got more than the chickens. Joe accused Betty of being partial to the ducks.
"You allus give 'em the best of everything, and twice as much as you do the chickens," he complained.
"They get the most because they've got the most confidence in me," said Betty, putting on a very wise look. "They come close up to me, while a chicken shies off and misses the goodies coz she's silly enough to be afraid. Besides, the ducks are mine. I raised 'em. I paid twenty cents a setting for the eggs out of my own money, and when you raise a thing you generally like it the best. Ducks are a heap smarter'n chickens, anyway," she asserted. "I never can get one of the chickens to feed out of a spoon, and the ducks like it the best kind." To convince him she held toward them a large baking spoon of soured milk. This milk was thickened into a paste or ball by being put on the stove and separated from the whey, or watery part, by the action of the heat.
It was a favorite dish with the fowls, and they all smacked their lips when they saw it coming.
As fast as Betty could fill the spoon it was emptied by the ducks, who stuck their big yellow bills into it and devoured the contents, letting the chickens below scramble and push and pick each other for any stray bits that fell to the ground.
"Didn't I tell you?" said Betty triumphantly. "Them chickens had just as good a chance as the ducks, but they wouldn't take it."
"Huh!" answered Joe. "Their necks ain't long enough, is what's the matter."
There were several trees in the yard, and often when the fowls were fed, birds flew down from their leafy recesses to pick up the crumbs left lying about. How I used to wish they would come near enough to my cage that I might converse with them, but it always happened that just at the time when one of them would settle close to the house, either Joe's little dog, Colly, would run across the yard, or Betty or her mother would appear at the door and frighten my feathered friend away. Only once did I exchange a word with any of these birds, and that for but a few short minutes.
The bird did not belong to our family, nor had I ever met any of his relatives before, but that made but little difference. He was a bird, and that was enough. We did not wait for any formal introduction; but as he balanced himself on the edge of my cage he hurriedly told me news of the woods, and how he wished I might get free and come to live there. He told of the lovely dragon flies, with purple, burnished wings that floated in the forest, mingling their drowsy hum with the chirping of the birds. He told of the great mossy carpet spread under the trees; how at set of day the owls came out, and the moles rustled in the fallen leaves, and the frogs raised their evening hymn to the sinking sun.
I could have listened for hours to the sweet familiar tale my feathered brother told of life in the happy woodland, but Betty's mother suddenly hurrying out to the pump to fill her bucket, cut short the story, and away my bird friend skimmed out of sight without so much as saying "good-bye." Though I saw him several times after that, he never came so close again.
"Oh, what heaps and heaps of fireflies!" exclaimed Betty, as she unhooked my cage to move me into the house that evening. "It looks as if our door-yard was full of moving lanterns."
"Nothin' but lightnen bugs!" said Joe contemptuously. "Here, see me catch 'em," and in a few minutes he showed her a handful which he had killed by crushing between his hands.
"Hold on, I want to catch some too!" and hustling me into the kitchen, Betty ran along with him and was soon engaged in catching and killing the beautiful fireflies.
CHAPTER IX
THE HUNTERS
Song birds, plumage birds, water fowl, and many innocent birds of prey,
are hunted from the everglades to the Arctic Circles for the barbaric
purpose of decorating women's hats. The extent of this traffic is
simply appalling.—G. O. Shields.
When Joe and his father came back from their gunning expeditions, the accounts they gave of the day's slaughter made me very homesick and miserable, and wore sadly on my spirits in my captivity.
The heartless indifference with which the woman would ask her husband if it had been "a good day for killings," almost made me wail aloud.
"Best kind of luck; I bagged nearly a hundred this trip," he replied exultingly, one night when she put the usual question. "The birds were as thick as blackberries in the high weeds along the creek, and were havin' a mighty good time stuffing themselves with seeds. Joe fired the old gun to start 'em and, great Jerushy! in a minute the sky was dark with 'em; I just blazed away and they dropped thick all around us, and it kept us tol'ble busy for a while a pickin' 'em up."
"Pop, tell 'em about the old water bird down in the swamp," said Joe with a wicked laugh.
"Yes, tell us; what was it, pop?" urged Betty.
"Oh, nothin' partickler, I reckon; just an old bird that hadn't the grit to get away from me," and the man gave a low chuckle at the remembrance.
"My, oh! the way them old birds hung around and wouldn't scare worth a cent when we was right up close to 'em was funny, I tell ye," and Joe leaned back in his chair and slapped his knees in a fresh burst of merriment.
"There was eggs in the nest was the cause," said the man; "them birds are always as tame as kittens then. You can go right up to 'em and they won't leave the nest. Them birds has two broods in a season, and then's the chance to get a good whack at 'em."
Joe rubbed his hands together in delight as he turned to his sister, "You'd ought to have seen 'em, Betty. There was pop in his rubber boots a creepin' along—a c-r-e-e-p-i-n' along as sly as a mouse toward 'em, and there they stayed. The male bird he fluttered and' squawked, and the female she stuck to the nest till pop he got right up and he didn't even have to shoot her. He just clubbed her over the back and down she went ker-splash as dead as you please. Them there eggs won't hardly hatch out this year, I don't reckon," and at the prospect Joe broke into a malicious guffaw.
"I think to club it was meaner'n to shoot the poor thing," said Betty indignantly. "And, anyway, I wouldn't a-killed it on the nest. It's mean to treat an 'fectionate bird so."
"Pshaw, you'd do big things!" was Joe's scornful reply.
"Well, I wouldn't be so tremenj'us cruel," persisted Betty; "I don't believe in killing a pretty bird."
"But what would the wimmen do without bunnet trimmen' if we didn't kill 'em, hey?" and Joe finished his question with a taunting whistle.
As the shadows of each evening gathered around the cottage, the shadow over my life seemed to deepen and grow more gloomy. Outside the door I could hear the hum of the bees as they flew homeward, the wind-harp played in the yellow pines its softest, sweetest music, and I scented the odor of honeysuckles and roses far away. The rushing of the waters over the stones in the creek tinkled dreamily, but in the midst of all earth's loveliness I was desolate, because I was not free.
And thus the summer days dragged wearily along, and the autumn came. It is not surprising then that I was overjoyed when later on I learned that I was to be given as a present to a young relative of Betty's, who lived to the northward in a distant State. My present existence had grown almost intolerable, and I felt that any change could scarcely make my condition worse, and there was a chance of its being better. The prospect put new life into me.
Preening my feathers became a pleasant task once more. I whetted my bill till it glistened, and my long-neglected toilet again became my daily care.
"I shall be mighty glad to get rid of the mopy creature," Betty's mother had, said when they talked of my departure. "I wouldn't give the thing house-room for my part."
"Cousin Polly will like it, though," Betty answered her mother. "Polly was always fond of pets, and she'll be powerful pleased to get it as a present from her Southern kinfolks."
"We'll have to go to the cost of a new cage, I reckon, and I don't feel like spending the money, neither," mused the mother. "Polly might like a bresspin better. I don't know as it will pay to send her the bird after all."
How my heart sank at this announcement! so fearful was I that I might have to remain at the cottage; but Betty's answer gave me new hope.
"Oh, certain it will pay!" she exclaimed eagerly. "You know how many nice things Cousin Dunbar's sent us off-and-on, and only last Christmas Polly sent me my string of beads. As for giving her a bresspin for a keepsake, she can get a heap nicer one out of their own store than any we could send her, and I'm certain she'd like the bird best of all; it's such a good chance to send it by Uncle Dan when he is going to their town and can hand it right over to Polly."
"I reckon you're right. Well, it will be only the cost of the cage," said her mother, and so the matter was settled, much to my satisfaction.
My new cage was very pretty, if anything can be said in praise of a prison, and was much lighter and pleasanter than the old, heavy, home-made structure in which I had been shut up so long. Its rim was painted a cheerful green, and the wires were burnished like gold. Ornamental sconces held the glass cups for my food and there were decorated hoops to swing in. Altogether it was a very handsome house, yet I could not forget it was a prison house.
Betty busied herself in fixing it comfortably for me, and was full of kind attentions. She begged me many times not to get frightened when the cover would be put on my cage. The hood was necessary when I was traveling, but Uncle Dan would be sitting right near me all the time and would be very good to me. She further assured me that I would find the motion of the cars delightful, and that all I would have to do was to sit on my perch and munch my seed and have a good time. How jolly it would be to go whizzing past fences and over bridges and through tunnels and towns and never know it, she said. She also charged me particularly not to be scared when I would hear an occasional horrible shriek and a rumbling like thunder, as if the day of judgment was at hand. I must remember it was only the locomotive, and it was obliged to do those disagreeable things to make the cars go faster'n, faster'n, faster'n———
How much faster I did not have time to find out, for Uncle Dan just then called to get me. A light cover with a hole in the top was slipped over my cage, and I started on my journey. Of my trip, of course, I knew nothing. Part of the way we rode in a wagon through the country to the station where we took the train, but as Uncle Dan did not remove my cover in the railway car the time spent on the journey was almost a blank to me.
Right glad was I, after what seemed a long, long time of jarring and jolting, to find the cage once more swinging from his hand and to hear the click of his boot heels on the pavements as we went through the streets of the town where Polly lived.
CHAPTER X
A NEW HOME
Should it happen that the last egret is shot and the last bird of
paradise is snared to adorn a lady's dress, then—then I would not like
to be a woman for all that earth could hold.—Herbert O. Ward.
When at last my covering was removed I found myself in a large, long room, which I afterward learned was a millinery store. In fact the store was the front part of the family residence, the living rooms being behind and upstairs over it. My cage was hung near the wide doorway at the end of the apartment and my new mistress at once ran to fill my cup with fresh water and bring me a supply of clean millet. After I had refreshed myself I began to look about me and study my strange surroundings.
My new home was so unlike the little log house in the South from which I had come that it was many days before I could accustom myself to the clatter of voices which buzzed monotonously all day through the store. From ten o'clock in the morning, if the day were fine, till three in the afternoon, the din at times was almost deafening; for it was the busy season and customers were constantly coming and going, not all of them to buy, merely to look over the ribbons and tumble up the goods, as I heard the tired clerks say complainingly more than once.
Numerous glass cases were placed near the walls, and running cross-wise were a counter and shelves much frequented by ladies who stood eagerly examining the array of bright gauzes, the glittering buckles, the flowers and plumes displayed there. And what a chattering they kept up! What a stir and a hubbub they made! So many "Oh-h's" and "Ah-h's," so many "How lovely's," and other ecstatic exclamations, were mingled with their conversation as was quite bewildering. In time, however, I became accustomed to this and discovered it was simply a way ladies have of expressing their approval of things in general. Around the glass cases which held the trimmed hats the women buzzed like a swarm of flies, their volubility assuming a more emphatic character as they gazed within at the fashionable headgear placed on long steel wires. Almost every hat held one, or a part of one, of my slaughtered race. Frequently there were parts of two or three varieties on one hat—a tail of one kind, a wing of another, or a head of a different species. The ends of the world had been searched to make this patchwork of blood. The women raved over the cruel display; they gloated over our beauty; but they cared nothing for the pathetic story the hats told of rifled nests and motherless young.
My new owner was a soft-voiced, gentle child, from whom I soon found I had nothing to fear. She was most careful to keep my cage in order and never neglected to feed me. Unlike her little friend Betty, she never allowed her sports or pleasures to interfere with this duty. Often her playmates came for a romp in the garden behind the store, but she did not join them till she had first attended to my wants. I was fond of having her talk to me, for her voice was sweet and kind, and the little terms of endearment she often used were very pleasing and made me feel she was my true friend. She once tried to pet me by stroking my feathers, but I did not like it. Although I knew she did not mean to hurt me, the motion of her hand made me nervous. Instead of persisting, she only said reproachfully, as she put me back on my perch:
"Dear Dickey Downy, why are you afraid of me? Your own little Polly wouldn't hurt you for the world. I wanted to softly stroke your pretty plumage just out of pure love and, you dear little coward, you won't let me."
In her affection for me, Polly did not forget the wild birds outside, which flew about in the big evergreen trees near the garden gate. She showed her thoughtfulness for the little creatures by strewing bread crumbs for them on the window sills on snowy days. She often gathered up the tablecloth after the housemaid had removed the breakfast dishes and, running out under the trees, would shake it vigorously that her wild pets might get all the little pieces of food that fell. Not a bird came down as long as she remained in the yard, but as soon as she had tripped back to the house and the door closed upon her brown curls, I could see a drove of hungry snowbirds swoop from the trees, and in a minute every crumb would be picked up. I am sure they must have loved dear little Polly, for many a choice bit did they get through her kindness.
While the majority of the customers at the store were well-dressed women, there were many who came to buy hats who looked poor and pinched. A few looked slatternly.
A sudden swing of their dress skirts would disclose a badly frayed petticoat or a tattered stocking showing above the shabby shoe. Their gloveless hands were red and cold and coarse, and the milliner told the clerk that she dreaded to have them handle her filmy laces or glistening satins, because their rough fingers stuck to the delicate fabrics and injured them.
These poor women worked hard, early and late. Beyond the barest necessities they had little to spare, and yet not a woman among them would have bought an unfashionable or out-of-date hat could she have had it at one quarter the price. Feathers were fashionable, and feathers she must have. Might not one "as well be out of the world as out of the fashion"?
All this dreadful traffic in my murdered comrades, and their display in the glass cases as well as on the heads of the customers, naturally made me very sad, and I now looked with aversion at every woman who entered the store. But that all were not heartless fiends who were robed in feminine garb I found out another day when a daintily dressed lady came in to purchase a winter hat. The contents of the glass cases were looked over critically for some time before she selected one which she tried on before the long mirror. The milliner, who deftly adjusted it for her, tipping it first forward a little, then setting it back a trifle, stood off now to view the effect, at the same time assuring her how beautiful it was, and how vastly becoming to her.
"I like this hat very much," said the lady; "or at least I shall like it when the bird is taken off."
"You think the oriole too gay? Orange is quite the vogue," answered the milliner, who seemed reluctant to make any change, and yet was anxious to please her customer. "Perhaps you'd prefer some wings; or stay, here is a sweet little gull that will go all right with the rest of the trimming. We will take off the oriole if you wish."
"Thank you, but I have decided not to wear birds any more," said the customer.
"But the effect would be quite spoiled without a wing, or an aigrette, or something there," exclaimed the milliner. "You wouldn't like it. I wouldn't think of taking off the bird, if I were you."
"Yes, I shall like it much better with the bird off," returned the lady quietly. "I have sufficient sins to answer for without any longer adding the crime of bird slaughter to the list."
The milliner bestowed on her a pitying smile, but evidently was too politic to get into a discussion of an unpleasant subject. Having given her final order for the hat, the lady crossed over to the other side of the room and shook hands with a friend whom she addressed as Mrs. Brown, who had just come in and was making a purchase at the lace counter.
"I have been putting my new resolution into effect," she remarked after the first greetings; "I have just ordered my new hat, and it is not to have a bird or a wing or a tail on it."
"Oh, I'm glad to hear of one convert to the gospel of mercy," said Mrs. Brown heartily. "The apathy of our women on this subject is heart-sickening. Men are denouncing us; the newspapers are full of our cruelty; the pulpit makes our heartlessness its theme; and yet we keep on with our barbarous work with an indifference that must make the angels weep."
Her face glowed with righteous indignation. It was easy to see that any cause to which she might commit herself was sure of an ardent and untiring champion.
"But they tell me that chicken feathers, and those of other domestic fowls are being largely used now instead of birds," said the other lady.
"Oh, yes; they tell us so because they want to prevent us from getting alarmed, since so much has been said against the destruction of the birds. It is true that chicken feathers always have been used to some extent, the straight quills for instance. I know it is frequently broadly asserted that the most of the birds used are made birds, but the manufactured creatures are poor deceptions; they are mixed with bird feathers, and are sold only to the less fastidious customers. The demand for genuine birds is as great as ever."
"But do you think as many are used now as formerly?" questioned her companion.
"Yes, indeed! Just think of the feather capes and muffs and collarettes made of birds. The market for them is increasing all the time. It takes from eighteen to twenty-five skins for each collar, and I don't know how many for the muffs. Oh, I tell you, women are heaping up judgment on themselves."
The other lady looked grave. "I understand," said she, "that in many places down on the New Jersey coast the boatmen have given up fishing, as they can make so much more money killing terns and gulls for women's use. They earn fifty dollars a week at it, at ten cents apiece for the birds. Isn't that a horrible record for women?"
"I don't doubt they earn that much, and perhaps more," answered Mrs. Brown; "for one season there were thirty thousand terns killed in one locality alone. And at Cape Cod, and up along the shore near where I lived, they are slain by thousands every season and shipped to New York. Oh, I can't tell you how distressing it used to be to hear the report of the guns day after day and know that every piercing sound was the sign that more innocent lives were being taken. I used to cover up my ears and try not to hear them. It made me shiver to know that those poor gulls were being shot down for nothing. Their only crime consisted in being beautiful."
Both women turned at that moment attracted by the sight of a young lady who was standing on the pavement outside in an animated talk with another girl.
"There's Miss Van Dyke, with her new feather collar on," observed Mrs. Brown, in a low voice.
The young lady in question was a dashing, radiant creature, bright with smiles and a face like a picture. On her shapely shoulders was a magnificent cape, lustrous as satin, of silvery white, into which pale dark lines softly blended at regular intervals. Twenty-two innocent lives had been taken to make that little garment. Twenty-two beautiful grebes slain that their glossy breasts might lend splendor to a lady's wardrobe.
The two friends looked at Miss Van Dyke in silence for a moment, then sighed as she passed along out of their view.
"When I see such perversion of woman's nature I wonder that the very stones do not cry out against us," exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "And mark my words, the slaughter will go on; the unholy traffic will not long be confined to grebe's breasts for muffs and cape trimmings. Other birds will be used. The gentle creatures are not all put on hats."
"Oh! I must not forget to tell you that the new preacher over at the Second Church has begun a course of lectures on the work of mercy that women might do. He says that as mothers in the homes, and as teachers in the public schools and the Sabbath-schools, we have a grand opportunity."
"So we have; but what avails our opportunity if our eyes are blinded so that we do not see it?" assented Mrs. Brown.
"Last night," resumed the lady, "he spoke particularly of the crime of wearing birds; and he accuses us of being more cruel than men."
"He does?" questioned Mrs. Brown, in great surprise. "Why, we all know that woman's part in this wickedness comes from her desire to look pretty; at least she thinks that wearing birds adds to her beauty. Her wickedness does not come from actual love of butchery. But men and boys have shot innocent creatures since the world began for the mere brutal pleasure of killing something. It seems as though they were born with a blood-thirsty instinct, a wanting to destroy life, to hunt it and shoot it down. They beg to go gunning almost before they are out of dresses and into trousers. Every mother knows there is a savage streak in her boy's nature. No," continued Mrs. Brown, with a decisive nod of her head, "I say let the man who is without sin among them be the first to cast stones now. Perhaps this very preacher spent all his Saturdays robbing birds' nests and clubbing birds when he was a little boy, and kept it up until he was big enough to kill them with a gun. Of course there are some who do not; not all boys are cruel. But this cruelty does not excuse ours. Man's wickedness does not make us the less guilty. We will be held responsible all the same."
The other woman looked thoughtful. "Well," she said at last, "I haven't quite lost all faith in womanly mercy. Women don't mean to be cruel; the trouble is they don't think."
"Don't think!" echoed Mrs. Brown scornfully. "Don't think! That is an excuse entirely too babyish for women to offer in this age of the world. Do they want to be regarded as irresponsible children forever? Don't you know that childish thoughtlessness on a subject as important as the needless taking of life argues tremendously against us? Here we are at the twentieth century, and with all our boasted advancement we are as cruel and savage as Fiji Islanders. Oh, don't talk to me about women!" and she made an outward motion of her hand as if pushing away an imaginary drove of them that was coming too near. "I haven't a particle of patience with them. If they're not in the habit of thinking, let them begin it right off. Let them begin it before the birds are all destroyed. If they have the least spark of tenderness left in their hearts———"
The rest of the sentence was lost in the louder tones of a pert little miss, who in company with her mother was rummaging over a box of trimmings on the counter nearest my cage.
CHAPTER XI
THE ILL-MANNERED CHILD
O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as ithers see us.
—Burns.
There lived of yore a saintly dame,
Whose wont it was with sweet accord
To do the bidding of her Lord
In quaintly fashioned bonnet
With simplest ribbons on it.
"I won't have ribbon loops, I tell you," exclaimed the child. "I want an owl's head and I'm going to have it."
"Why, my dear, the ribbon is ever so much prettier," urged the mother soothingly. "An owl's head is too old a trimming for your hat, dear. It wouldn't do at all. Here, select some of this nice ribbon."
"Didn't I say I wouldn't have it?" answered "dear" pettishly, as she reached into another box containing an assortment of wings, quails, tails, and parts of various birds jumbled up together. Picking out a pair of blackbird's wings she placed them jauntily against the rim of an untrimmed hat which her mother held.
"There, that looks nice," was her comment. "If I can't have an owl's head I'm going to have these wings."
Her mother mildly assured her that the ribbon was more suitable only to be met with the reply: "You can wear it yourself then, for I sha'n't wear it."
This shocking disrespect caused two old ladies who were pricing hat pins to turn quickly and view the offender.
"Goodness gracious!" ejaculated one of them, drawing a deep breath. "If that youngster belonged to me for about twenty minutes, wouldn't I give her something wholesome that she'd remember? I'd take the tantrums out of her in short order."
"She deserves it, sure," said her companion. "But the mother is more to blame than the child for letting it grow up with such abominable manners. I dare say the woman at first thought it was cute and smart in the little thing, and now she can't help herself. La, sakes! just listen to that." She re-adjusted her spectacles and gazed with added interest at the pair in altercation.
With the hat poised on her finger the milliner was bending smilingly toward the little girl who was giving her order in a very peremptory tone.
"I want those wings put on my hat. I won't wear it if you trim it only in ribbon."
The mother seemed a little embarrassed as she told the milliner that she supposed the hat would have to be trimmed in the way Elsie wanted it.
"Humph! I knew the child would get what she wanted," observed the old lady who had first spoken. "I felt all the time that the mother would have to give in. What on earth did she let her take those big black wings for? Two of those little yellow sugar birds would have been better for a child's hat. The idea of letting a youngster rule you that way! My!" and then she took another deep breath. "She needs a trouncing, if ever a child did," and with that she and her friend resumed their shopping.
The cloud had vanished from Elsie's face, and all was serene again. Her mother seemed somewhat ashamed of her little girl's bad manners, as was shown by her apologetic air when she observed to the trimmer that Elsie was as queer a child as ever lived. When she set her mind on a thing, it was so hard for her to give it up.
They waited for the new hat to be trimmed, and on its completion Elsie seized it and put it on her head, much against her mother's wishes, who preferred not to have it displayed until the next day at Sunday-school; but the insistence of the child was so vehement that again the mother thought it wise to yield, and Elsie tripped off in triumph to the other end of the store with the black wings showing out stiffly on each side of her head. The mother remarked, with forced playfulness, as she watched her, "Elsie's a g-r-e-a-t girl, I tell you. You can't fool her."
[Illustration: The Baltimore Oriole.]
As the trimmer returned the boxes to the shelves, I overheard her mutter, "Oh, yes, Elsie is a g-r-e-a-t girl, a perfect little jewel, so well-behaved. Her polite manners show her careful home training; quite a reflection on her dear mamma." But from the peculiar laugh she gave I didn't believe she really meant it as praise.
When the nights grew longer and the store was closed for the evening, the milliner and her husband usually spent an hour or two in the back room looking over the newspaper which came every day from the city. The man always turned at once to the wheat reports, and the price of wool, which he read aloud to his wife, though I could see she did not care very much to hear about them; but she hunted first for the fashion notes and the bargains in millinery before she read the other news. One night while thus engaged she suddenly exclaimed:
"Here's something that is bound to hurt trade."
By trade she meant the millinery business.
"What is it?" her husband inquired, looking over the top of the page he held.
"Why, here's a lot of women who have been meeting in a convention in Chicago and getting excited and losing their heads, and passing some ridiculous resolutions."
"What kind of resolutions?" he inquired.
"Oh, they've been denouncing the fashion of wearing birds. They belong to a society called—called—something or other, I forget what. Let me see," and she ran her eye down the column. "Oh, yes, here it is. They are members of the O'Dobbin society, and they got so wrought up on the subject they took the feathers out of their hats right there in the meeting and vowed never to wear bird trimming again. Well, if such outlandish notions spread, you'll soon see how it will injure the millinery trade."
"Pshaw! you needn't worry. The protests of a handful of fanatical women can't do your business any harm," he answered carelessly, and turned to his paper again.
She shook her head. "I'm not so sure of that. I think there are some women in this very town just cranky enough to endorse such foolishness. There's Mrs. Judge Jenkins for one. I've never yet been able to sell her a real stylish hat. She won't wear birds, because she thinks it's wicked. I hope to goodness she won't consider it her duty to start an O'Dobbin society here."
From the depths of my heart I blessed those kind women who had shown their disapproval of the nefarious traffic in bird life, and had pledged themselves to our protection. True, they were but a handful compared with the millions whom the god Fashion still held in bondage, only a handful who were fighting the good fight; but would not the influence of their noble example and their pledge of mercy be spread abroad till all the women in Christian lands would join in the crusade against the wrong?
In my joy at the thought I chirped so loudly that the lady looked up from her reading. She seemed suddenly to recall a thought as she glanced at my cage, for she said, "I must not forget to ask Katharine if she can take the bird home with her next week and keep it while Polly is gone to the country. I'll be sure to forget to feed it. Anyway, I haven't time to bother with it."
The day before Polly left for the country I heard her inquiring for the "Daily," which I remembered was the name they called the newspaper containing the account of the noble city ladies who had pledged themselves not to wear us any more.
"Tuesday's paper?" her mother asked; she was busy at the time fastening a poor, little, mute swallow on a rich hat. "Perhaps it was thrown behind the counter. Did you want it for any special purpose?"
Polly replied that she wanted to read something in it.
"Well, it is probably torn up by this time," said her mother. "If it isn't on the table in the back room, or on the shelf by the window, or behind the counter, I'm sure I don't know where it is."
The young clerk who was arranging the goods on the counter had heard Polly's inquiry, and she now asked if it was the newspaper that told about the women who thought it wrong to wear birds. It seemed to me that Polly hesitated a little as she replied that that was the very paper she wanted.
"Goodness, child, is that the piece you want to read?" Her mother's voice sounded rather sharp, as if she were vexed. "I hope that subject hasn't turned your head too," but she said no more, for just then a customer coming in, she laid down her work and went forward to greet her.
Polly looked troubled, but she confided to Miss Katharine that she wanted very much to read the account.
"Fortunately I cut the piece out to give to my sister. I knew she'd be interested in it, but I have always forgotten to give it to her," said the clerk. She seemed to be very much in earnest as she continued, "I do wish something could be done to save the birds. If women must have feathers, why can't they content themselves with wearing ostrich tips and plumes? There is nothing cruel or wicked in the way they are procured."
She opened the little satchel hanging at her belt, and from it took a folded slip of paper which she handed to Polly, telling her she might have it to read, and when she had finished it to please bring it back to her. Polly thanked her, and ran away to a quiet corner of the back room, where I saw her slowly reading the clipping as she rocked herself in her pretty birch chair. When she had read it through, she sat for some time looking very thoughtful. At last she rose and carried the paper back to Miss Katharine, halting a moment as she passed my cage, to whisper softly:
"Dickey Downy, you dear little fellow, I'm going upstairs right this very minute to take the feathers off my best Sunday hat and I'm never, never going to wear birds any more."