CHAPTER XII
Andy’s study of nature proved to be no idle whim, and Gillis had long since ceased teasing him. All his leisure moments were spent in scouring the hills and meadows for specimens, and regularly every Sunday afternoon he ascended the hill to Wainwright’s cabin with his collection for the learned Englishman’s inspection.
On this afternoon, Wainwright, being in one of his solitary moods, had wandered up the mountain, and Andy found Connie busily engaged in spading the earth in search of worms, which she tossed to the swarm of birds that hopped on the ground and filled the air about her.
Scolding the bold camp-robbers that ventured dangerously near the shovel blade, she scattered the soil, then laughed joyously as the birds with a great flutter of wings pounced on the fat worms.
Andy threw himself luxuriously on the green sward. This beautiful spot was a diversion from the hot kitchen, a veritable haven of rest. The gentle murmur of the bees among the flowers, the soft, subdued twittering of the birds, the rustle of the leaves, and the laughing of the water, all combined to make one sweet monotone of sound that lulled him into drowsiness.
Connie sat down near him, the birds all about her.
“ ’Ow do you get them so tame, Connie?”
“They know that I love them,” she replied simply.
“I can’t get anything but the camp-robbers to come near me,” said Andy.
“It takes time and patience, Andy. As soon as the birds are assured that you mean them no harm, they are eager to be your friends. You’ll remember, Dad told you that without plants man could not live,” she went on. “It is equally true that if all the birds should perish, man would soon follow. And, still more wonderful, if we had no insects man could not survive.”
Andy came to a sitting posture. “Do you mean to s’y that we would die if we ’ad no insects?” he asked incredulously.
“Surely, Andy, you haven’t forgotten what Dad told you last Sunday about the insects carrying the pollen from flower to flower,” reproved Connie.
“I ’ave it now!” cried Andy, after a few moments of reflection. “If we ’ad no insects to carry the pollen the plants couldn’t live. And if the birds were all gone ther’d be so many insects that they’d eat up every blinkin’ thing the farmers raised, and we’d starve to death.”
Connie nodded.
“Strike me ’andsome if it ain’t wonderful!” said Andy in an awed voice.
Connie explained very simply to Andy the benefits derived by mankind from the various birds. Her discourse proved so interesting to him that he paid little heed to the time until the sun, disappearing behind the trees, warned him that it was time to return to his duties. Regretfully he arose and turned to the trail, Connie walking by his side. A goldfinch, rich in his summer plumage of bright yellow, black and white, hung swaying like a dainty sprite on a slender stem near the path. From its bulging little throat came a rippling, bubbling song like a miniature torrent of ecstasy.
“Dear, dear, dearie,” he called sweetly.
“Oh, you darling!” cried Connie as she clasped her hands in rapture. “I’ve been trying to find their nest for several days, Andy, but the little dears have hidden it too well.”
She made soft clucking sounds as she moved nearer to the beautiful bird. The goldfinch fluttered close to her side to perch like a yellow flower on the top of a tall thistle, perked its pretty head and looked up at her with bright shining eyes.
“Dear, dear, dearie,” it sang again, then flew with characteristic wavy motion to a clump of willows, twittering sweetly as if calling Connie to follow.
“I ’ave to ’urry ’ome,” said Andy as he looked at his watch. He glanced back at a turn in the trail to see Connie pressing the willows gently aside in her search for the goldfinch’s nest.
“Strike me pink! but she is a wonderful girl,” soliloquized Andy. “The ’andsomest and the brainiest kid I ever saw in me life. If I was thirty years younger, two feet ’igher, and ’arf decent to look at, I’d fall ’ead over ’eels in love with ’er.”
He smiled broadly at these ridiculous reflections, but there was a tender light in his bright blue eyes. A swarthy foreign labourer, moving aimlessly up the trail, merely grunted in reply to Andy’s cheerful salutation.
“One of Gillis’s beloved bohunks,” chuckled Andy.
A moment later he stopped suddenly. Connie was up there alone. For a short interval he hesitated, then resumed his downward journey. “She’d shoot ’is blinkin’ ’ead off if ’e tried to ’arm ’er,” he decided.
Just then he heard Connie’s voice raised in a quick cry of anger. Andy jumped as though subjected to a galvanic shock. He turned in mid-air and before he struck the ground his short legs were going through the motion of running. The picture of Connie struggling in the arms of the burly foreigner made him fairly fly.
“I’m coming, Connie!” he shouted as he tore up the hill.
Donald and Gillis, sitting near the bluff enjoying a smoke came to their feet as they heard a faint shout from above. For an interval they listened intently, but hearing no further sound they resumed their seats. Andy slackened his pace as he came to the clearing and saw that Connie was unharmed. She was standing near the labourer with her head bowed over an object held in her hand.
“What’s wrong, Connie?” panted Andy.
“Andy, look!” she choked, “it’s the mother bird. I had just found her nest—here it is.” She parted the bushes to disclose a compact, cosy, cup-like structure of fine grass and moss placed in a crotch of the tree. In the centre lay four downy fledglings whose tiny mouths gaped wide to receive the expected bit of food from the mother’s bill. “Oh, Andy, if she dies the little ones won’t live,” said Connie in a voice filled with pity.
Andy took the wounded bird from her hand. “ ’Ow did it ’appen, Connie?” he asked tenderly.
Connie was as open and unaffected as the wild birds of the forest. She was as capable of hating as she was of loving. Her eyes were laughing eyes, and the soul that looked out of them a merry soul, but she had a temper, and under sufficient provocation her blue eyes could take on a dangerous glow.
She now turned like an enraged lioness on the foreigner. “He killed it with a stick!” she cried furiously. “You brute, you cowardly brute. . . .” In her rage her voice became incoherent. With hands clenched and with breath coming in short gasps, she moved nearer to the object of her hatred. In her hysterical anger her voice rose almost to a scream.
“You cur, if I were a man I’d—I’d lick you!”
The cry came to Donald’s ears, and he was off up the trail like a deer.
“Something wrong, Jack!” he shouted.
“Go ahead, I’ll follow,” responded Gillis.
Andy looked down on the mother goldfinch as it lay in his hand. He felt the quick throbbing of its heart grow fainter and fainter. One wing was broken and its white breast was stained with blood. The bird’s head drooped lower, and a film settled over its bright eyes. The beautiful wings stretched rigidly, and it gasped convulsively, sending a tiny stain of crimson from its mouth that felt warm on his palm.
Andy’s face became colourless. His hand shook violently as he placed the dead bird tenderly on the ground. “Connie dear,” he said, in a voice that trembled, “I ain’t a whole man, but ’ere’s where you see ’arf a man goin’ into battle to give all he’s got.”
He removed his coat and threw it from him. Through a rage-mist Andy saw the grinning foreigner throw up his arms in an absurdly unscientific posture of defence. Like a mad cat, Andy launched himself straight at his husky opponent. The grin was wiped from the big man’s face by Andy’s compact fist, as it smacked resonantly on the end of his thick nose with a snap like that of a whip, and with a skilled force that brought blood.
Andy’s years of training boxers now stood him in good stead. He well knew that a small man would stand little chance in long range fighting, and he kept well inside the larger man’s wild swings. With his blond head tucked against his adversary’s body, his fists worked like pistons; he kept sending short jolts to the body that brought heavy grunts every time they landed.
Connie was delirious with excitement.
“Hit him, Andy! Hit him! Good! Good!”
And then she groaned as the big man’s hand found Andy’s throat and flung him to the ground. Little Andy was up immediately, but stepped into a swinging fist that caught him over the eye and sent him sprawling. Undaunted, he came to his feet, waited warily for an opening, and again sprang under the big man’s guard.
Andy’s fist shot up in a ripping upper-cut that was judged to a nicety, catching his opponent on the point of his chin with force enough to send him rocking on his heels, and before he could recover himself the same fist, accompanied by its mate, beat a tattoo on his solar plexus.
In desperation the bewildered man wound his arms about the little Australian and lifted him high in air. Like a game bulldog Andy hung on. Though his feet were off the ground, he clung to the big man’s body like a leech.
Again the big hands felt for Andy’s throat, and he was flung six feet to strike with a thump that shook every bone in his body. Connie cried out in fear as he narrowly avoided a brutal blow aimed at his head.
Andy’s sense of British fair play had received a rude shock. “As Methusalem said,” he panted, as he came to his feet, “when in Bohunkia do as the Bohunks do.”
“Take that, Spaghetti!” he shouted, as he kicked the foreigner viciously on the shin. While the latter leaned over in pain, Andy shot a well-directed upper-cut to his face. The big man sat down, a dazed look in his eyes.
Breathless, Donald arrived on the scene, with Gillis puffing in the rear.
Breathing heavily, Andy’s adversary came to his feet, picked up his hat, and with arms wound about his head beat a hasty retreat. Andy was after him like a hornet, sending stinging blows through his vulnerable guard. Donald and Gillis stood with mouths agape to see Andy administering a sound thrashing to a man twice his size. Right to the edge of the woods he relentlessly pursued his fleeing enemy.
Andy’s head was held at its usual cocky angle, and he assumed a swagger as he retraced his steps, but his short legs wobbled and he sank dizzily to a stump.
“I brought ’is blinkin’ meat-’ouse down, Connie,” he gasped.
“Oh, Andy, you’re a darling!” she cried, throwing her arms impulsively around the little man’s neck, and touching her lips to his cheek.
Andy’s florid face took on a deeper magenta, and he blinked hard to hide certain signs of emotion. He afterwards admitted to Donald that he was no “sweet sixteen,” and that it was the first time that he had ever been kissed in his “bloomin’ ” life.
Connie wet her handkerchief in the cold water of the creek and bathed his face with tender care.
She showed Donald and Gillis the nest with the motherless birds, doomed to die a premature death by this act of wanton cruelty, and pointed to the tiny bird on the ground, for whose untimely end Andy had taken a well deserved and summary vengeance. Connie choked as the lovely male bird flew to a stalk of goldenrod near its dead mate and sent out its throaty warble.
“Dear, dear, dearie,” sang the goldfinch in a plaintive, questioning note.
Andy presented a pitiful figure with an eye closed, his lips swollen, and his face bruised, but the indomitable spirit of him shone from his one bright orb.
“You darned little buzz-saw!” said Gillis tenderly.
Donald slapped his little friend on the back, his eyes shining with admiration.