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Page 23
Would you think the woman who wore that bunch of feathers on her bonnet
could take much pleasure in it?
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.
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