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Page 26
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.
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