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.
"There was eggs in the nest was the cause," said the man; "them birds are always as tame as kittens then. You can go right up to 'em and they won't leave the nest. Them birds has two broods in a season, and then's the chance to get a good whack at 'em."
Joe rubbed his hands together in delight as he turned to his sister, "You'd ought to have seen 'em, Betty. There was pop in his rubber boots a creepin' along—a c-r-e-e-p-i-n' along as sly as a mouse toward 'em, and there they stayed. The male bird he fluttered and' squawked, and the female she stuck to the nest till pop he got right up and he didn't even have to shoot her. He just clubbed her over the back and down she went ker-splash as dead as you please. Them there eggs won't hardly hatch out this year, I don't reckon," and at the prospect Joe broke into a malicious guffaw.
"I think to club it was meaner'n to shoot the poor thing," said Betty indignantly. "And, anyway, I wouldn't a-killed it on the nest. It's mean to treat an 'fectionate bird so."
"Pshaw, you'd do big things!" was Joe's scornful reply.
"Well, I wouldn't be so tremenj'us cruel," persisted Betty; "I don't believe in killing a pretty bird."
"But what would the wimmen do without bunnet trimmen' if we didn't kill 'em, hey?" and Joe finished his question with a taunting whistle.
As the shadows of each evening gathered around the cottage, the shadow over my life seemed to deepen and grow more gloomy. Outside the door I could hear the hum of the bees as they flew homeward, the wind-harp played in the yellow pines its softest, sweetest music, and I scented the odor of honeysuckles and roses far away. The rushing of the waters over the stones in the creek tinkled dreamily, but in the midst of all earth's loveliness I was desolate, because I was not free.
And thus the summer days dragged wearily along, and the autumn came. It is not surprising then that I was overjoyed when later on I learned that I was to be given as a present to a young relative of Betty's, who lived to the northward in a distant State. My present existence had grown almost intolerable, and I felt that any change could scarcely make my condition worse, and there was a chance of its being better. The prospect put new life into me.
Preening my feathers became a pleasant task once more. I whetted my bill till it glistened, and my long-neglected toilet again became my daily care.
"I shall be mighty glad to get rid of the mopy creature," Betty's mother had, said when they talked of my departure. "I wouldn't give the thing house-room for my part."
"Cousin Polly will like it, though," Betty answered her mother. "Polly was always fond of pets, and she'll be powerful pleased to get it as a present from her Southern kinfolks."
"We'll have to go to the cost of a new cage, I reckon, and I don't feel like spending the money, neither," mused the mother. "Polly might like a bresspin better. I don't know as it will pay to send her the bird after all."
How my heart sank at this announcement! so fearful was I that I might have to remain at the cottage; but Betty's answer gave me new hope.
"Oh, certain it will pay!" she exclaimed eagerly. "You know how many nice things Cousin Dunbar's sent us off-and-on, and only last Christmas Polly sent me my string of beads. As for giving her a bresspin for a keepsake, she can get a heap nicer one out of their own store than any we could send her, and I'm certain she'd like the bird best of all; it's such a good chance to send it by Uncle Dan when he is going to their town and can hand it right over to Polly."
"I reckon you're right. Well, it will be only the cost of the cage," said her mother, and so the matter was settled, much to my satisfaction.
My new cage was very pretty, if anything can be said in praise of a prison, and was much lighter and pleasanter than the old, heavy, home-made structure in which I had been shut up so long. Its rim was painted a cheerful green, and the wires were burnished like gold. Ornamental sconces held the glass cups for my food and there were decorated hoops to swing in. Altogether it was a very handsome house, yet I could not forget it was a prison house.
Betty busied herself in fixing it comfortably for me, and was full of kind attentions. She begged me many times not to get frightened when the cover would be put on my cage. The hood was necessary when I was traveling, but Uncle Dan would be sitting right near me all the time and would be very good to me. She further assured me that I would find the motion of the cars delightful, and that all I would have to do was to sit on my perch and munch my seed and have a good time. How jolly it would be to go whizzing past fences and over bridges and through tunnels and towns and never know it, she said. She also charged me particularly not to be scared when I would hear an occasional horrible shriek and a rumbling like thunder, as if the day of judgment was at hand. I must remember it was only the locomotive, and it was obliged to do those disagreeable things to make the cars go faster'n, faster'n, faster'n———
How much faster I did not have time to find out, for Uncle Dan just then called to get me. A light cover with a hole in the top was slipped over my cage, and I started on my journey. Of my trip, of course, I knew nothing. Part of the way we rode in a wagon through the country to the station where we took the train, but as Uncle Dan did not remove my cover in the railway car the time spent on the journey was almost a blank to me.
Right glad was I, after what seemed a long, long time of jarring and jolting, to find the cage once more swinging from his hand and to hear the click of his boot heels on the pavements as we went through the streets of the town where Polly lived.