Live Toys; Or, Anecdotes of Our Four-Legged and Other Pets

by Emma Davenport

THE JACKDAW.

One morning, my sister was sitting with Mamma at the dining-room window, when they saw me coming down the garden walk, with my head bent down, and something perched on my back.

"Look!" said Mamma, "What has your brother got on his back?"

Up started my sister.

"Oh!" cried she, "It is something alive; it is black: what can it be?"

And she darted out to look at my prize.

It was a fine glossy fully-fledged Jackdaw. The gardener, knowing my love for pets of all kinds, had rescued it from the hands of some boys, who had found a nest of jackdaws, and had presented it to me.

Although it was quite young, it looked like a solemn old man; the crown of its head was becoming very grey; and it put its head on one side, and examined us in such a funny manner, listening with a wise look when we spoke, as if considering what we were saying.

The gardener had cut one of his wings pretty close, and the remaining wing was not very large. We set him down in the garden, and watched him for some time, in order to be certain that he could not fly over the low wall that separated our garden from the road. And we soon saw that he could only flutter a few inches from the ground, and hop in a very awkward sidelong manner; there was no fear of his escaping.

Luckily, there was a large wicker cage, that had once been used for a thrush, in the coach-house. We fetched this out, cleaned it, and placed Jacky in it on the ground near some shady bushes. We left the door open, that he might hop in and out, and always kept a saucer of food for him in the cage.

He soon became very tame; would hop on our wrists and let us carry him about, and liked sitting on our shoulders, as we went about the garden. Near his cage was a large lilac-bush, and he found that he could hop nearly to the top by means of its branches; and he picked out for himself a nice perch there, in a sort of bower of lilac-leaves and flowers.

Finding this much pleasanter than the cage, he soon deserted that entirely; and at night, and whenever he was not hopping about the garden, or playing with us, he was to be found always on the same twig in the lilac bush.

We used to place his saucer of sopped bread, and his saucer of water at the foot of the bush.

When we passed, he used to shout "Jacky!" and soon began to try other words; and tried to imitate all sorts of sounds and noises.

In the heat of summer, when the bed-room windows were all opened at daylight, we used to hear him practising talking in his bush. He barked like the dogs; utterly failed in his attempt to sing like the canaries; mewed like pussy very well, indeed; and then kept up an indescribable kind of chattering, which we called saying his lessons; for we supposed that he intended it to imitate our repeating of lessons, which he heard every morning through the dining-room window.

Sometimes we heard more noise than he could possibly make alone; and we softly got out of our beds, and peeped through the window to discover what it was about. There must have been six or seven other jackdaws, running round and about his bush, hopping up and down into it; apparently trying how they liked his house, and having all sorts of fun and conversation with our Jacky.

Within a few fields of our garden walls, stood the old ruin of a hall or manor-house; it had once, doubtless, been large and handsome; nothing now remained of it but the outer wall, a few mullioned windows, and some remnants of stone-staircases. The walls being very thick and much broken, afforded excellent holes and corners for jackdaws'-nests; for owls and such things. Indeed, it was from one of these holes in the ruined hall, that Jacky had been taken. And the numerous feathered inhabitants of the "Old Hall," as it was called, having spied our pet, sitting in lonely state in his bower among the lilac leaves, doubtless thought he would be grateful for a little company, and the society of his equals; so kindly used to pay him a visit in the early morning, before children or gardener were likely to interfere.

We were rather afraid that the wild jackdaws might entice away our Jacky, by describing to him their own free life, and the mode of existence in the crumbling walls of their home. But when Mamma made us observe how very awkwardly he hopped about with his cropped wing, and how utterly impossible it was for him to fly across two or three fields, and to the top of the ruin, we were satisfied that his stay in our garden was compulsory; and we agreed that the "Old Hall" jackdaws might visit him as much as they pleased. But they never once came at any other time than very early in the morning.

I suppose Jacky thought that he had kept these visits a profound secret from us.

As he grew older, he became extremely mischievous. When Mamma was busy in the garden, he used to come down from his tree and follow her about from one border to another, watching earnestly whatever she was doing; and whilst she tied up the plants, or gathered away the dead leaves and flowers, he used to put his head on one side, and seemed to be considering for what purpose this or that was done.

Mamma was planting a quantity of sweet peas, in order to have a second and late crop, after the first had begun to fade. She planted them in circles, twelve peas in each, and a white marker was stuck in the centre of each patch. As it was fine warm weather, Mamma expected that these peas would very soon appear; but in a few days, when she went to look at them, she saw that all the white markers had been pulled up and thrown on one side.

So she called to us, "Children! I am afraid you have meddled with my seed markers; for they have all been taken out, and I stuck them firmly in the ground; some one must have touched them."

We assured Mamma that we were not the delinquents; indeed, we were too fond of all the beautiful flowers to injure them in any way.

When we looked closer, we saw that there was an empty hole in each place where Mamma had planted a pea. They had every one been picked out.

Whilst we were wondering who could have done this, the gardener passed, and Mamma showed him the empty holes, and the markers pulled up; and asked him who he thought likely to have done such a piece of mischief.

"I shouldn't wonder if it war he," said the gardener, pointing to Jacky, who, as usual, was close to Mamma, listening attentively to all we said.

"Jacky, Jacky!" shouted he, making some of his awkward jumps at the same time, and going close to the ring of little holes, he peeped down them, with his head on one side, as if to make sure that he had left nothing at the bottom.

We could not help laughing at the queer old-fashioned manner of the creature; but, at the same time, it was very annoying for Mamma to lose all the pretty and sweet flowers through Jacky's greediness.

She said she would plant some more immediately; and she sent my sister, with Jacky on her wrist, to the front of the house, with orders to stay there till the planting was finished, so that the mischievous bird might not watch the whole process, and would not know where the seeds were planted.

I staid to help Mamma; we planted rings of sweet peas in different places from the old ones; and instead of white markers, which might attract Jacky's notice, we stuck in a great many bramble-sticks, all round every patch, so closely that a much smaller bird than Jacky would have found it difficult to squeeze himself in between the rough prickly twigs. Then we thought that all was safe, and we let Jacky come back to his perch.

The next day he had not touched the brambles; but I suppose he had thought it necessary to do something in the way of gardening; so he had fetched up, from the farthest end of the kitchen garden, a roll of bass, or strips of old matting, that was used for tying plants and flowers to sticks. This he had pulled into little shreds, all about the lawn and the flower-beds, and a great deal of time and trouble he must have spent upon his work. How the gardener did scold! saying, that it would take the whole afternoon to clear away the litter, and that Jacky did more mischief than he was worth; and so on.

But Jacky was a privileged person, and did pretty much as he liked; so it was of no use to complain about him.

It was most amusing to see how he teased the gardener when mowing was going on; he would watch his opportunity, and when no one chanced to be looking, he would run away with a bit of carpet or piece of old flannel, that the gardener used to wipe his scythe; or else he would drag away the hone, or sharpening-stone, and hide it under his lilac-bush.

So gardener, finding him a great nuisance on mowing days, told us that he should certainly mow off Jacky's head or legs some day; for he would come hopping about among the cut grass; and if taken up and landed in his tree, he would immediately come down again, and thrust himself just in the way.

So for the future, we took care on mowing days to shut up Jacky in the nursery, or in the dining-room, where he used with a rueful countenance to watch all proceedings through the window, pecking now and then in a spiteful way at the glass.

THE SPARROW-HAWK AND CAT.
Page 45.

Whilst Jacky was in our possession, we had a sparrow-hawk for a short time. Papa brought him home one evening in a paper bag; he was a very handsome fellow, with such brilliant eyes, and such a beak! He was perfectly wild, and bit furiously at any hand that approached him; so we covered up his head in a pocket-handkerchief, whilst gardener fastened a small chain round his leg. Then we fixed a short stump in the grass, not far from Jacky's lilac, and fastened the end of the chain to the stump. So he could run and hop about for a yard or two round the stump; we intended to keep him there until he became a little tamer, and hoped that the example of his neighbour would teach him good manners. But instead of taking Jacky as a pattern, the new comer bullied him in a most dreadful way. We might have saved ourselves the trouble of chaining him, for he snapped the chain in two with his strong beak, and came down from his stump quite at liberty to roam about. Strange to say, he did not go away altogether, but walked in at the dining-room window. We were seated at tea, and not knowing that the hawk had liberated himself, we were quite startled at hearing a curious flapping in the corner of the room, but we soon saw the two brilliant eyes, and there sat Mr. Sparrow-hawk, on the top of the book-case. We took him out and confined him to his stump again. There he staid quietly all night; but next day we heard Jacky pitying himself in his bush, and we found him fidgetting about in the top of the lilac, and fearing to come down, because Mr. Sparrow-hawk was walking about at the bottom, and whenever poor Jacky ventured down, he was darted at by the new comer, and hastily scrambled up the bush again. This was done out of pure love of teasing, for the hawk would not condescend to touch Jacky's food, consisting of sopped bread; but yet he would not let the poor old grey-head come down to eat his own breakfast. Jacky was quite crest-fallen, and we procured a stronger chain which held Mr. Sparrow-hawk fast on his stump for several days, during which time Jacky regained his equanimity.

But then the chain was burst again, and this time the hawk took to chasing the cats as well as tormenting Jacky. We had two cats, they were very good friends with Jacky, and used wander about the garden a good deal; quite unconscious of what was in store for them; they commenced playing about Mr. Sparrow-hawk's stump, when down stepped the gentleman and nipped the tail of the nearest cat quite tightly in his sharp beak, poor pussy shrieked and mewed, and we had to go to her rescue. At last we left off chaining the hawk, as we found that he did not try to escape, but sat on his stump or else came into the house; and we often were startled by finding him perched on a table, or on the bannisters, but at the same time he would not become tame, and he so terrified and annoyed poor Jacky, that we soon sent him away; and certainly the cats and Jacky must have rejoiced, when they found the savage owner of the stump had disappeared. The only sign of civilization which Mr. Sparrow-hawk had shown, was one evening, when a gentleman who visited us, happened to be playing the flute in the drawing-room. The hawk never came into the room when any one was there, and had very often heard the piano and singing; but probably the peculiar sound of the flute had something very pleasing to the bird's ear, for although this room was full of people, he came to the open window, hopped in, and gradually approached the flute-player, till he perched himself on the end of the flute. When the music ceased, the hawk, quietly took himself out of the window again, and next day was as wild as ever.

One of Jacky's great pleasures during the summer, was bathing or washing at the sink in the back kitchen. We always took care that he was provided with a large saucer of water, which stood beneath his lilac bush, but this did not appear to be sufficient. One day when the cook was pumping water out of the sink-pump, Jacky jumped up, and put his head under the stream, shouting and fluttering, with expressions of the greatest delight; and after this he generally came every day into the back kitchen, and called and hopped about until cook came and pumped over him. Such a miserable half drowned creature as he looked, with all his feathers sticking close to his body; then he used to repair to the kitchen and sit before the fire, till he became dry. Sometimes he got upon the fender, and when the fire was large, it made his feathers appear quite to smoke, by so rapidly drawing out the water. Once he was actually singeing, when the cook snatched him up and put him out of the window, and it was strange that he seemed to like the roasting at the fire, quite as well as the cold water.

He soon discovered the time that tea was prepared in the kitchen, and regularly came to the window to ask for tea and bread and butter; so a saucer of tea and a piece of bread and butter were placed on the window-sill for him, as punctually as the cook's own tea was prepared; and Jacky sipped his tea, and ate his bread and butter like any old washerwoman. But whilst sitting at the kitchen window he spied all sorts of things on cook's little work-table that strongly tempted his thieving propensities, and coming cautiously one morning, when the cook was absent, he pretty well cleared the table; very many journeys in and out must it have cost him, for when the poor cook returned to her kitchen, she began exclaiming. "Who has been meddling with my work and all my things?" and she called to me and my sister, and asked if we had hidden her work materials to plague her. "No indeed," we said, "we have not been here this morning at all."

"Well then," said she, "what has become of my thimble, my scissors, and reels of cotton, my work, that I laid upon the table, and there was also an account-book of your Mamma's, and a pen; I don't see one of them!" We hunted about for the missing articles. The kitchen window looked out on a plantation, not far from Jacky's bush. My sister looked out. "Oh!" cried she, "there is one leaf of your account-book on the border." "And I declare," exclaimed cook, who had run to the window, "there is one of my new reels twisted round and round yon rose tree; I do believe it's that mischeevous bird." We were delighted. We both sprang out of the window—"There's your thimble," I shouted, "full of wet mould!" "And here are your scissors," cried my sister, "in Jacky's drinking saucer! And there is your half-made shirt, hanging on the rose bush beneath the window!" Poor cook could not forbear laughing. "Well," said she, "he must have been right-down busy to take off all these things in about five minutes. Gather up my things for me, like good bairns." So we ran about picking up the things; the cotton reels were restored with about half their supply of cotton, as he had twisted them all round about the stems of different plants; the pen was stuck into the earth, and as for the account-book, the leaves were all about the garden, some he had even carried down to the cucumber frame, quite at the other end. But he was such a favourite, that even this sort of trick was allowed to pass unpunished. He furnished us with much amusement; and I am now coming to his sad end.

The wall which separated our garden from the road, was very rough and old, full of holes and crumbling mortar. Once or twice, when sitting at the windows, we had seen a small animal run across the gravel walk; we could not discern whether it was most like a rat or a weasel, and probably it came in through one of the holes in the wall. We did think of Jacky; but knowing that he always roosted at the top of the lilac bush, we supposed that he was quite out of the reach of rat or weasel. One morning quite early, our Papa whose window was open, heard a very strange sort of chattering from poor Jacky, so unlike his usual language, that he got up and looked out of his window. Seeing nothing, and hearing no more, he went to bed again; but when Mamma went as usual to give Jacky his breakfast, no call of pleasure came from the bush, no Jacky was there, and he was no where to be seen.

"Then a weasel has taken him," said Papa, when we told him; "the singular cry he made this morning, was doubtless when the weasel seized him." And when we searched about the garden, there we found on a grass bank, at some distance, the remains of our poor pet. The weasel had bitten him behind the ear, and sucked the blood; his feathers were a good deal ruffled, but no other bite had been made. We blamed ourselves much, for not having safely fastened him in a cage every night in the house. But now we could do nothing but bury the body of poor Jacky.