CHAPTER XII
TWO SLAVES OF FASHION
I do not like the fashion of your garments.
—Shakespeare.
I'm sure thou hast a cruel nature and a bloody.
—Shakespeare.
Two young ladies, fashionably dressed, met each other that afternoon just in front of our side window, which had been raised to let in the air. From the warmth of their greeting I saw that they were on terms of friendly intimacy.
One of the girls stood a little out of the range of my vision, therefore I could not hear her voice when she talked, if, indeed, she had a chance to say anything, but the vivacious monologue carried on by her friend was amply sufficient to show the theme which interested them.
How glibly that pretty creature chattered! How fast the words flew! How she arched her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders and winked her eyes and wrinkled her forehead and pursed her rosy lips and tilted her nose and gesticulated with her slender hand and tapped the pavement with her umbrella point, passing from each phase of expression to the next with a rapidity truly wonderful. Occasionally she went through with these strange grimaces all at once. She was indeed a whirlwind of language, an avalanche of emotion.
Her voice was high pitched and shrill, so that every one on the street must have heard her as she exclaimed:
"Oh, Nell, how perfectly lovely your new hat is! Turn around so that I can see the other side. Oh-h, ah-h, that darling little bird with its glossy plumage among the velvet is too sweet for anything! If anything it is prettier than Kate Smith's hat with the thrush's head and wings, although I'll admit hers is awfully stylish. You ought to see my new hat. Ah, I tell you it's a beauty; soft crown of silvery stuff, and on one side a tall aigrette and a dear little cedar-bird, and toward the back is the cutest, cunningest humming-bird with its tiny green body and long bill. It looks as if it were ready to fly or to sing. I selected the trimming for sister May's new hat too. It is brown velvet and has an oriole on it; you know they are so showy and bright it makes you almost think you are in the woods. At Madame Oiseau Mort's, where I get my millinery, there was another hat I had a notion to take. It was built up with robins' wings and part of a tern was on it too, I believe—just lovely! but afterward I was glad I didn't buy it, for that decoration is more common. I counted nine hats in church last Sunday trimmed with gulls. Of course they were pretty, for a handsome bird makes any hat pretty.
"By the way, Nell, I must tell you something perfectly ridiculous! Do you know papa pretends it's wicked for women to wear birds on their hats or trim their gowns with feather trimming? Did you ever? I told him we'd be a mighty sorry-looking set going around like a lot of female Dunkards or Salvation Army women, without a bit of style, and he said those women hadn't the sin on their souls of wearing birds that had been killed on purpose to minister to their vanity; that he'd rather be a peaceful-faced Dunkard woman or Salvationist with her plain bonnet and her gentle heart than a gay society butterfly with her empty head loaded down with dead birds.
"Isn't it perfectly horrid for him to talk like that? He is such an old fogy in his ideas he actually makes me tired. Then he went on to say that never again could he believe that women are the tender-hearted creatures they have always been supposed to be, when they show themselves so eager to be decked with the innocent songsters whose lives are sacrificed by the million on the altar of fashion; the men have always been taught that woman's nature was morally superior to theirs, but we'd have to give up this criminal fad which we have persisted in at such a fearful price of bird life before we could be regarded as other than monstrously cruel and bloody. However, he prophesied that the fashion can't continue much longer anyway, because there soon won't be any birds left, and then, he says, we'll have a world without its sweetest music. It will be hushed by the folly of woman.
"Oh, Nell, don't you dislike to have anybody lecture you like that? It makes one feel so uncomfortable. I don't suppose it's so very wrong to wear bird trimming or our minister's wife wouldn't do it. You know her black velvet hat with that big bird on it with the red points on the wings, is one of the most striking hats that come to church. And her feather muff is so elegant, awfully expensive too. And what would her hat look like without that bird on it, I'd like to know? So if it isn't wicked for her it isn't wicked for us, Nell, and I'm not going to give up looking nice just to please papa. He'd like to have me dress as antiquated as old Mrs. Noah when she came out of the ark, but I'm not going to encourage him in his old-fashioned notions. And here, Nell, just listen to this! Don't you think, he says the Episcopal Prayer Book ought to be revised for the women worshipers and omit that part of the litany where it says, 'From pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy, good Lord, deliver us.' What fol-de-rol!" And being out of breath she stopped talking and they walked away down the street together.
CHAPTER XIII
DICKEY'S VISIT
Kind hearts are more than coronets.
—Tennyson.
Plainly furnished and small was the house to which I was taken by Miss Katharine to stay during Polly's absence at her grandmother's in the country. But though it was destitute of fine furnishings, it was the abode of peace and love, and its lowly roof sheltered noble and kindly hearts. The two sisters lived there alone, supported mainly by Katharine's earnings in the millinery store, though occasionally the sister, who was lame, added something to their little income by making paper flowers and other articles of bright tissues. It was her business to keep the house while Miss Katharine was at the shop, and very long and lonely the hours must have seemed to her while her sister was away.
The first day I was there a boy whom she addressed as John Charles came to the house. Apparently he had been carefully trained, for he raised his cap when the lame girl opened the door to his knock. His manners were fine, for he remained standing after he entered until she had first seated herself, as if to say, "A gentleman will not sit while a lady stands."
He had come to inquire if she wished to buy some cooking apples.
"They are very nice," said John Charles briskly, quite as if he were an old salesman. "No mashed or decayed ones among them."
"I have been wanting some apples," said Eliza. "If I knew what yours were like I might buy some."
"I have a few here to show," and John Charles drew from a small paper sack one or two bright rosy apples. "There, try one," he said. "You will find them nice and juicy and sour enough to cook quickly."
Eliza bit into one and expressed her approval of the fruit. "They will make delicious apple-sauce, I'm sure," she said. After inquiring the price she told the young merchant he might carry in a peck.
With a business-like flourish John Charles took a small note-book and pencil from his pocket and wrote something at the top of the leaf.
"I'm not delivering now," he said as he returned the note-book to his pocket. "I'm only taking orders; but I'll have your apples here in an hour."
Eliza bit her lip to keep back a smile. A boy in knee pants transacting business like a grown man, appeared quite amusing to her.
"Oh, I see," she said. "You take orders for your goods. You don't sell from door to door."
"No, indeed!" answered John Charles with a lofty air. "That's too much like peddling. I won't peddle. I prefer to get regular customers and take orders and fill them."
While he had been talking he had been glancing toward me where I hung in the window, and he now politely asked if he might come to look at me. Eliza gave a surprised consent, but watched the boy closely as he stood near and chirped to me calling me, "Po-o-o-r Dickey Downy," as soon as he found out my name. I saw from the way Eliza kept her eyes on his movements that she was expecting he would do something to hurt me, but in this she was pleasantly disappointed, for he never once touched my cage and cooed as softly when he spoke to me as Polly herself might have done.
I was quite afraid of him at first, for ever since my experience with the wicked schoolboys who clubbed us in the linden trees, and my later experience with Joe, I disliked boys very much.
[Illustration: The Bobolink.]
When John Charles had bidden Eliza "good-morning" and tipped his hat again and the door closed after him, she said to me: "Why, Dickey, that was a new kind of a boy! He never once tried to hurt you or to scare you. It shows that all boys are not rough, and I shall always like John Charles, for he is a little gentleman."
To this sentiment I fully agreed, and I thought, "Alas! why are not all boys as gentle as John Charles?"
In a few hours I felt as much at home with Eliza as if I had always lived there, and I was much pleased when I heard her tell Katharine at the supper table the next evening how much she had enjoyed having me with her.
"A bird is ever so much better company than a clock," she said; "though when I'm here by myself I always like to hear the clock tick. It seems as if I were not so entirely alone. But a bird is better. I talked to Dickey to-day and he twittered back. He has such a cute way of perking his little head to one side just as knowing as you please, and he acts exactly as if he were considering whether he should answer 'yes' or no' to what I say, and then it is such fun to watch him smooth down his feathers. He washes and irons them so nicely and works away as industriously as if he were afraid he'd lose his 'job.'"
Miss Katharine rose from the table and stuck a lump of sugar for me to taste between the wires of my cage.
"I am surrounded by poor dead birds in the store all day," she observed, "and spend so much of my time sewing their wings and heads and tails on hats and sort boxfuls of them for customers to look at, that even a living bird saddens me."
"Yes, it must be very depressing. What a shame to kill them; they are so cute and pretty and such happy little creatures! See how cunning he looks nibbling at that sugar," and the sister joined Miss Katharine in watching me.
"But do you know, Kathy, I don't believe that women would continue wearing bird trimmings if they stopped a minute to think about it. It doesn't seem wrong to them because they never considered the question. They simply haven't thought about it at all."
"Somebody set the fashion and they all followed like a flock of sheep," answered the other with a sneering laugh.
"Yes, that's just the way. They go along without thinking. They only know it is the style, and they don't stop to inquire whether it can be indulged in innocently or hurtfully. Now I believe that if their attention was particularly called to it, the most of them would quit it."
Miss Katharine brightened into a smile and half unclasped her little satchel.
"If a bird could talk," pursued the lame girl, "what a revelation it could make. What lovely things it could tell us of that upper kingdom of the air where it floats and the distant land it sees! What sweet secrets of nature it knows that man with all his wisdom can never find out. And then its gift of song! Why, if thousands and thousands of dollars were spent in training the finest voice in the world it could never equal the notes of a bird. A woman who could perfectly imitate a lark's carol would make her fortune in a month. The world would go wild over her."
"But as she can't do that she has the lark killed to stick on her hat, and then she goes wild over it," interrupted Miss Kathy.
Her sister smiled at this outburst and continued: "While I was working at that morning-glory wreath to-day I couldn't help but watch this bird of Polly's with its innocent little antics, and it made me see more than ever how wrong it is to cage and kill them. I just felt as though I ought to do something to help save the birds and, Kathy, I wonder if we were to invite some of our friends here some evening and call their attention to the subject, and explain the wrong to them, if we couldn't do some good that way? Maybe they'd decide not to wear birds on their hats."
"We might try, sister, I would be perfectly willing to try; but I'm afraid it wouldn't do much good, for we have but little influence. As long as fashionable and wealthy ladies will do it, the poorer classes will not give it up very readily."
"But they have hearts which can be appealed to. They have feelings which can be roused," answered the lame girl eagerly. "Being alone so much I have more time to think over these things than the shop girls who are hurried and busy all day, and perhaps nobody has ever tried to show them how wrong it is; but I really believe some of them could be influenced, if once they would seriously think of the wrong they are doing. That is the reason, Kathy, I suggested to get a lot of them together to talk about saving the birds."
The gentle cripple had never even heard of the great Audubon. She did not know that societies existed in many States called by the name of the distinguished naturalist, engaged in the same merciful work.
Miss Katharine drew from the satchel the paper clipping and handed it to her sister, saying: "This is a coincidence surely; I cut this out of the daily paper at the store some time ago, intending to give it to you, but I always forgot it. It is an account of the proceedings of a convention in one of the big cities. You will see by reading it that somebody else has been thinking your identical thoughts."
"How lovely that is!" exclaimed Eliza when she had carefully read the notice. "How I should have enjoyed being at that meeting. We will help those people all we can, Kathy, by stirring up our acquaintances here. You invite the girls for tomorrow night and I'll have the house ready for them."
That I had been an inspiration to this gentle girl in her work of mercy was a great joy to me, and all the next day I was constantly bursting into a round of cheerful twitters and I swung myself in my hoop as fast as I could make it go.
The best room was swept and dusted with the greatest care, and a few extra chairs moved in from other parts of the house. My cage was transferred from its usual hook to the parlor, and about eight o'clock the guests thronged in and soon every seat was filled. They were principally girls who were clerks in stores, or worked in shops and offices, and many of them were very smartly dressed. A few, like Miss Katharine and her sister, were more plainly attired; but all were lively and full of girlish fun and seemed to enjoy being together. My cage hung in view of every one, and I was proud to be selected as an object-lesson by the lame hostess in her introductory appeal to her guests to help save the birds. She so presented the facts that before the evening was over she had roused an enthusiasm in some of them almost equal to her own, and several pledges were given not to wear birds again.
"There is something new in the way of womanly cruelty which isn't so well known as the destruction of the birds," remarked one of the company. "The humane society ought to get after the women who wear baby lamb trimming."
"The way sealskins are procured is also very cruel," said another girl.
"I have never read much about it," answered Eliza, "but it surely cannot be so wicked as killing song birds, because the sealskin is an article of clothing which serves to keep the body warm, while a dead bird sewed on your hat is merely for show and doesn't keep you warm or cool or anything else."
"It is not the use that is made of the sealskin that is wrong, but the cruelty of the hunters in getting it," replied the young lady who had first spoken. "They say when the parent seal is captured the young one cries for it exactly as a human baby cries after its mother. It is most pitiful to hear it wail. The branding of the poor creatures is a most brutal thing."
"Why are they branded?" asked Kathy.
"Well, you know, for some years there has been a great strife between the United States and Canada, principally over the seal fisheries. Each was afraid the other would get more than its share. To put a stop to the seals being entirely killed off, as was likely to be the case since so many poachers were in the business, one of our government agents suggested that the seals should be branded. They drive them into pens and burn them with red-hot irons."
"It isn't likely that any of us will be called upon to deny ourselves the wearing of baby lamb, as it is quite expensive, but we can condemn it by word if not by example," observed Kathy.
The good-nights were said and the company dispersed, not so jolly and noisy as they came, but with thoughtfulness arising from awakened consciences. The humble lame girl had sowed the good seed.
Polly was to come back from her grandmother's the next week and, though I looked forward with pleasure to being with her again, I felt sorry to leave this peaceful home. The worthy lives and beautiful aims of these obscure girls of whom the world knew nothing was a sweet remembrance to carry with me.
"Thank Polly for me for Dickey Downy's visit and tell her whenever she wants to go away anywhere I'll be glad to take care of him for her," Eliza said when the time came for me to go.
She gave the cage into Miss Kathy's hand. I chirped a farewell to her and she whistled back to me and we parted to see each other no more.
CHAPTER XIV
THE COUNTRY SCHOOL
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
—Bible.
Polly's welcome to me was most cordial. She was bright as a cricket and full of chat about her visit. With her usual care she examined my cage closely to see that everything was in order and petted and praised me for a little while to my full content, then ran to Miss Kathy to tell her of the new story book which had been presented to her while away.
"And I am going to read you the stories some day," she added.
Her young playmates flocked in to see her and as I listened to their glad voices my heart yearned more than ever for my comrades of the woods, for a thought of spring was in the air.
As the days went by there were indeed signs all around that spring was on the way. The wind no longer bellowed hoarsely in the treetops, but had a mellow, musical sound and the raindrops that struck the window pane trickled softly as if glad to come out of the clouds.
Just after school one bright afternoon Polly came to the door on the side porch and called in to Miss Katharine:
"I'll be playing out in the yard awhile. Louise and Nancy have come to stay till half-past five o'clock, so if mother needs me you'll know where to find me."
"All right" said Miss Kathy. "Go on and have a jolly time."
And a jolly time they had, judging from the merry shouts that came in through the open door.
"I've got your tag! I've got your tag!" I could hear Polly say, and then there was a great scampering of feet and roars of laughter as they chased each other up and down the walks. This was kept up for some minutes, then a voice began:
"Intery-mintery, cutery-corn,
Apple-seed and briar-thorn,
Wire, briar, limber-lock,
Three geese in one flock;
One flew east and one flew west
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest."
"Oh, Louise, you're out! It's your turn first."
"I wonder if we are the geese?" said Nancy. Then they all giggled as if what she had said was very funny.
"Louise, Louise, look, look! You're going to have good luck," presently shouted two voices. "A ladybird has lighted on your shoulder."
"Oh, goody!" said Louise. "I wonder what my good luck is going to be?"
"Shake it off, Louise, let it light on me," said Nancy. "I want good luck to come to me too."
"It is just the color of my new crimson dress," declared Polly.
"Only your red dress hasn't spots on it," corrected Louise.
"No, but the red is about the same shade as my dress. Oh, girls, wouldn't a row of ladybirds for buttons be pretty on my waist?"
At this quaint conceit the three girls all giggled again.
"I do think they are the cutest little bugs. I never get tired of looking at them," observed Polly.
"Bugs? You wouldn't call them bugs, would you?" inquired Louise. "I think they are little beetles."
"Beetles? No, no," said Polly and Nancy both in one breath, "A beetle is a big black thing that flies around only at dusk."
"Do you suppose your father would know?" asked Louise of Polly. "Let's take it in the house and ask him, and so settle whether it is bug or beetle."
And they came running into the sitting room behind the store to show the lady-bird to Polly's father, who was there looking over his paper.
"Is it a bug or a beetle?" they asked.
He laid down the paper and looked at the pretty little insect a moment.
"It is a ladybird."
"Yes, of course, we know that, papa; but Nancy and I say it is a bug, and Louise says it's a beetle," explained Polly.
"Louise is right," was his reply. "It is classed as a beetle. It is one of the best friends the farmer has, and the fruit grower too."
"How is it useful to him?" asked Nancy.
"Why, it eats the lice that spoil certain plants and leaves and grain. I notice that the Australian government is—Do you girls know where Australia is?" he asked, interrupting himself.
"Of course we do," they all shouted with much laughing, as if it were a great joke to ask them such a question.
"Well, I was going to tell you that the Australian government is taking steps to encourage the ladybird on purpose to help the fruit farmers of that country. Perhaps they have heard that it brings good luck," he added with a smile.
"Let's show it to Dickey Downy and then put it out of the door and let it go home," said Polly.
"Dickey Downy wouldn't know a lady-bird from a grasshopper," answered Nancy teasingly.
Polly retorted, "Don't be too sure! Dickey is a very intelligent bird, a very extraordinary bird."
She contented herself with paying me compliments, for instead of bringing the crimson beetle into the store she opened the window and let him fly away.
"Well, I'm glad I have learned something new about ladybirds," remarked Louise, as she tied her hat strings ready to go home.
"And I too," chimed in Nancy. "I am glad the Australians prize the pretty little creatures. It's nice to be useful and handsome too."
Then both girls said good-bye and ran home.
A few days later Polly announced to Miss Kathy that she was ready to read the long promised tale.
"Mother says you will be in the back room sewing this afternoon, so I will bring my little rocker and sit here and read to you. My book is full of beautiful stories about children and birds and bees."
I too anticipated a pleasant afternoon, for my cage still hung within the doorway where I could hear and see all that took place in both apartments. Soon after dinner Miss Kathy appeared in the back room with her thimble and scissors and seated herself at the work-table. Polly drew up her chair beside her. The book she held was a pretty little affair bound in red with a silver inscription on the covers, and after being duly admired by both, Polly opened it and selected the following story, which she read aloud:
THE MOUNT AIRY SCHOOL.
The breath of blossoms was in the air and spicy scents from the woods that lined the lane on each side came floating to the delighted senses of a little girl who drove slowly along the road leading to Mount Airy School.
Young horses frisked in the pastures or came whinnying to the fence as she passed. Lazy cows cropped the grass at the sides of the road, pushing their heads into the zigzag corners of the rail fence in pursuit of the tender clover that had crept through from the thrifty meadows.
The school was a little brick structure standing back a short distance from the road, with a playground on each side as enchantingly beautiful as it was novel to Alice Glenn, the little girl who had come from town by invitation of the teacher to visit the school. Accustomed to the severer discipline of the graded school of which she was a member, the unconventional ways of these children amused the young visitor greatly. But who could study on a morning like this, with the delicious warbling of the birds sounding in one's ears?
Who could be expected to take an interest in nouns and adverbs while his heart was out in the woods with the bugs and bees or with the sheep over in yonder field, whose ba-a, ba-a, was borne in distinctly through the open door?
"I'm sure I would never have my lessons if I went to school here in the summer time," thought Alice as she glanced over the room. "The country is too lovely to be spoiled by school books. Why, that boy has a wounded bird in his desk! I wonder if Miss Harper knows?" And a moment after, Alice met the bold, defiant look of the boy himself, which seemed to say, "Well, what are you going to do about it? That bird belongs to me."
The history class being called at this moment the big boy got up, shoved the little creature to the farthest corner of his desk and giving Alice a parting scowl, went forward to recite his lesson. Notwithstanding her desire to befriend the feathered captive she soon became interested in the class and could scarcely refrain from laughing outright at the answer to the teacher's question, "What happened at Bunker Hill?"
"Old Bunker died."
This was bawled out by a freckled-faced boy, who reminded her of a rabbit, owing to a fashion he had of twitching his nose and keeping it in motion in some mysterious way. Even the teacher wanted to laugh, but assuming her sternest manner she speedily restored order.
It was during the arithmetic lesson that Alice's heart went out in pity for the youthful instructor. The majority of the pupils were bright; but an unruly fraction, one child, refused to comprehend.
"If a family consume a barrel of flour in nine weeks, what part of a barrel will they use in one week, Matilda?"
Matilda rolled her blue eyes up to the ceiling as if to find the answer there, then studied a board in the floor for several minutes, then slowly shook her head and sat down. A dozen hands were raised, and the teacher nodded permission to a small boy who analyzed it successfully.
"Now, Matilda, you try it."
But Matilda shook her head and fidgeted with her apron string.
"Try it, and we will help you," persisted the teacher.
Thus urged, Matilda cleared her throat, folded her arms and began: "If nine persons use a barrel of flour in nine weeks, in one week they would use nine times nine, which is eighty-one."
"What! eighty-one barrels? But, Matilda, it makes no difference about the number of persons. It may be one hundred or it may be twenty. Suppose it were a bushel of potatoes they consumed in nine weeks. How many would they use in one week?"
The girl again shook her head and resumed her upward gaze.
"Would they not use one-ninth of a bushel? Or, we'll take a peach for instance."
Matilda's face brightened perceptibly and almost lost its look of dejection. The teacher noted the change and smiled encouragingly as she said:
"We'll suppose a peach will last you nine days. What part of it will you eat in one day?"
The expectant look faded out of the poor girl's face. One peach to last nine days! No wonder the question seemed impossible of solution.
"Well, then," said Miss Harper quite in despair and almost perspiring in her effort to make it plain to the child, "we'll let the peach go. Suppose instead, it were a watermelon. If you ate a carload of watermelons in nine days, what part of a carload would you eat in one day?"
At the mention of her favorite fruit, Matilda's eyes glistened, her features relaxed into a broader smile, and almost before the teacher had finished she had her answer ready and gave a correct analysis. Watermelons had won.
At last the little clock that ticked away the hours on the teacher's table pointed to the time for the noon intermission, and with a whoop and halloo almost deafening, the pupils rushed out with dinner pails and baskets to eat their luncheon in the shady woods.
Miss Harper led Alice away to her boarding-place across the fields. Scarcely taking time to taste the different kinds of jams, jellies, grape-butter, and other sauces set out by the hostess in special honor of the young visitor, Alice hastily dispatched her dinner and was soon back at the playground, where she found a bevy of girls seated on a big grapevine which one of the larger girls was swinging backward and forward amid shouts of glee. Nearby two gingham sunbonnets bobbed up and down as their owners bent their heads to watch a speckled lady-bug crawl up a twig.
"Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children will roam,"
repeated Esther in a low monotone.
"See, it's going now. I wonder whether it really understands us?"
"Of course it does," replied her companion positively. "Daddy-long-legs are real smart too. I caught one last night and I said over three times, 'Tell me which way our cow goes or I will kill you,' and it pointed in the direction of our pasture lot every time."
"You wouldn't really have killed the poor thing, though," exclaimed Alice, who had drawn near to look at the crimson lady-bug. "A daddy-long-legs is such a harmless creature. It has a right to live as well as we have."
"Oh, Caleb, did you catch it?" interrupted Matilda. "Bring it here!" and she beckoned to a small boy who was busy near a large beech tree some distance away. "He's been after a tree-frog," she explained. "There's one up in that tree that sings the cutest every evening and morning. I hear him when I am gathering bluebells."
"It's pretty near dead," said the boy bringing his trophy. "I guess I squeezed it too hard. We might as well kill it."
"No, no! that would be cruel; the poor little thing will soon be all right if you put it back on its tree. We'll go with you and help you put it up," replied Alice. "Come on, girls."
"It ain't hardly worth the trouble," and the boy looked at the frog disdainfully. "It's uglier than a toad, if anything. But I never kill toads; I know better'n to do that."
"I am glad to hear it," said the visitor from town as they turned toward the elm tree. "Toads enjoy life and it's wicked to molest 'em."
"Oh, I don't know about their enjoyin' life. The reason I let 'em alone is, coz if you kill a toad, your cow'll give bad milk."
Alice did not dispute this wise statement. She could not help wishing that the same law of retaliation protected all birds, beasts, and insects.
After seeing the frog deposited in safety in a hole in one of the big boughs, she with Matilda and Esther scampered back to the swing expecting to find the others there. To their surprise the big grapevine was unoccupied, and the shouts and screams issuing from the schoolhouse led them too, to hurry on to see what was the matter.
"Maybe Jim Stubbs has got a mus'rat, or somethin' in there a-scarin' the children," suggested Esther, as they entered the door.
A crowd had gathered in front of the teacher's desk on which was placed the large dictionary, and seated on the book was the boy who winked with his nose.
"Stand back!" he called, "I'm going to let it out, and then you'll see fun."
With that he jumped down, removed the dictionary, raised the lid of the desk, and out popped a red squirrel. Round and round over the floor flew the frightened animal, dodging here and there and wildly darting into corners to evade the books and other missiles that were thrown at it. Not only the boys took a part in the cruel sport, but some of the girls helped with sticks, sunbonnets, and whatever they could lay their hands on. Two or three times the little creature was struck. At last, helpless, it stood panting while one of its tormentors dealt it a blow that killed it.
A cry of protest broke from Alice's lips, but her voice was lost in the roar of applause that followed the big boy's action, as he tossed the lifeless squirrel across the room into the face of another boy, who in turn pitched the animal at his neighbor.
"The poor little creature! How could they abuse it and take its life?" cried Alice, turning to those nearest her. The other girls shrank back abashed at her reproachful tones, which were noticed by Jim Stubbs, and that hero felt called upon to make a speech.
"Bah! boys, that girl is getting ready to cry over a dead squirrel. What d'ye think of that?" And a heartless chorus echoed his laughter.
"No, I'm too indignant to cry," replied Alice with spirit. "I never knew boys could be so awfully wicked, yes, and girls too. I should think you would love these dear little creatures, and pet and protect them. They are what make country life pleasant. I wouldn't give a fig for your pretty woods if there were no living things to be seen there."
This was an aspect of the situation the boys had never before considered. They did not realize that to a lover of nature the humblest form of animal life is interesting. Did other people really prize squirrels and frogs and lightning bugs and such things?
Just at this moment the teacher entered, and the crestfallen pupils busied themselves in gathering up the scattered books and other articles used in storming the squirrel.
"My young visitor is quite shocked by such an exhibition of cruelty," said Miss Harper, when she had learned how matters stood. "Think what the woods would be without the song of birds and the chirp and hum of insects. Your playground teems with happy beings that love the warmth and sunlight as well as you do. Would not the forests be robbed of half their beauty and interest if the squirrels and chipmunks and birds and butterflies were killed off?"
"Wimmen folks are nice ones to talk about cruelty to birds," sneered the big boy to his neighbor, "when they stick wings and tails and whole birds on their hats and bonnets whenever they can raise a cent to buy 'em with. Oh, yes, wimmen are awful consistent! They are, for a fact."
Had his words reached Miss Harper's ears she might have replied that sensible and humane "wimmen folks" regarded the fearful slaughter of birds as little less than a crime; but unfortunately she did not hear this and resumed:
"Yet you hunt out these harmless and beautiful creatures and wantonly destroy them. Nearly every boy gives way to this savage, brutal impulse to kill something. He couldn't tell why if you were to ask him. Children, do you know there is a society whose members pledge themselves to protect the birds? I wish we might organize one here to-day. I am sure, from a spirit of kindness, you would like to unite in a promise not to willfully harm any of these wonderful creatures that God has placed around us."
When Alice Glenn drove home that evening she carried with her a glad heart, for in her pocket was a copy of the rules and by-laws of the "Anti-Cruelty Society, of Mount Airy School," which Miss Harper had organized that afternoon. And it was signed not only by the girls and all the smaller boys, but by big Jim Stubbs and the boy who winked with his nose.
CHAPTER XV
POLLY'S FAREWELL
Happy little maiden,
Give, oh, give to me
The highness of your courage,
The sweetness of your grace,
To speak a large word in a little place.
—E. S. Phelps-Ward.
Closing the volume, Polly laid it in her lap.
"That was a good story," observed Miss Kathy, as the child paused. The little girl did not immediately reply, but leaned forward and looked wistfully in her companion's face for a moment.
"Do you think it is so very wicked to keep—that is, to—to deprive a bird of its liberty?" she asked timidly.
"Oh, I don't know that it could be called wicked. A canary bird, born in a cage, that never knew any other home, would be apt to die if it were turned loose to shift for itself and get its own living. It possibly could not stand the exposure to the weather," replied Miss Katharine.
"But supposing it wasn't a canary," said Polly hesitatingly; "supposing it might be a redbird, or a wren, or—or——"
"Or a bobolink?" Miss Kathy smiled as she supplied the word.
"Well—yes, a bobolink, for instance." And Polly glanced toward me.
"Any captured bird certainly feels very bad to be shut up in a cage all its life, though I have seen robins in captivity that grew to be as tame as canaries. My aunt had one that lived twelve years in a cage. It would peck her cheek, and pretend to kiss her, and do all sorts of sweet little tricks. His cage door stood open, and he went in and out as it suited him, but he never thought of flying away. However, it is only natural to suppose that hopping about in a narrow space would be dreadful to a bird accustomed to spreading its wings and soaring up through the sky whenever and wherever it pleased."
Miss Kathy looked at the clock. She saw it was time for her to go back into the store, then gathered up her work and went into the front room. When Polly was left to herself I could see she was thinking very hard. The rocking-chair kept moving faster, and her forehead was drawn into a little pucker between her eyes. She sighed too, occasionally, as if she were sad.
I noticed that Miss Katharine from her post behind the counter looked in at the child from time to time, and I heard her say half-aloud: "If the fashionable women of the land had hearts as merciful and consciences as tender as that dear little Polly's, the slaughter of the birds would soon come to an end."
The birch chair finally ceased to rock. The deep-drawn wrinkle passed away from Polly's forehead. She laid down her book and came to my cage, then she stood for a moment looking at me tenderly. Then she took the cage down from its hook and carried it to the door leading to the garden. The air was pleasant, and a sunbeam slanted across the porch making a yellow gleam on the lattice. How beautiful it looked to my weary eyes!
"Dearest Dickey Downy, good-bye," she said to me, and her voice had a little tremor in it. "You had a right to be happy and live out of doors among the trees, and I kept you a prisoner. Please forgive me for it, and forgive me for wearing birds' wings on my Sunday hat. I shall never do such cruel things again. It's coming spring now, Dickey, so be happy and fly away to the beautiful clouds."
She set the little wire door wide open. A warm zephyr swept by, laden with the scent of wild flowers and all sweet growing things. My heart fluttered with joy. I heard the far cry of the hills as I floated out and upward, higher and higher, on joyous wing. I was free, free!