The Curious Book of Birds

by Abbie Farwell Brown

Then Coora fell to weeping most sorely, for she knew that she could not trust the word of her father and mother; and that is a most terrible thing. At last she rose and wiped away the tears and looked about the little cottage where she had been patient through so many disappointments. And she said to herself, "I can bear it no longer. It is not right that I should be made to suffer like this when a little thing would make me so happy. I must see the rice field; I will go to-day."

Coora tidied the cottage, putting everything in its place and making it look as beautiful as she could. Then she took up the little sister who had fallen asleep on the floor, and kissing her tenderly placed her in the hammock which swung from wall to wall of the hut. Lastly Coora took off the golden bracelets and earrings and the tinkling anklets which she wore like other little Malay girls, and left them in a shining heap behind the door. But she kept her necklace about her pretty little neck.

Now Coora had learned a little magic from a witch, just enough magic to serve her turn. She went out and picked two palm leaves which she fastened on her shoulders and changed herself into a bird, a bright, beautiful Ground-Pigeon, with many-colored metallic feathers. But the necklace still made a band about her pretty little neck, as you may see on every Ground-Pigeon to this day.

Coora the Ground-Pigeon fluttered away through the forest until she came to the rice plantation where her parents were at work. She alighted on a dead tree close by them and called out, "Mother, O Mother! I have left my earrings and bracelets behind the door and have put my little sister in the hammock."

Astonished at these words her mother looked up, but saw no one, only a Ground-Pigeon perched on the tree over her head. "Father," she cried to her husband who was at work beside her, "did you not hear Coora's voice just now?"

"Yes, I thought so," answered the father angrily. "The wicked girl must have disobeyed me and have followed us here after all. I will punish her if this is so." They called to her, "Coora, Coora!" until the forest reëchoed. But no one appeared or answered.

"I will go home and see if she is there," said the mother. "Either I heard Coora speak or there is some magic in the forest." And she hastened back to the cottage. There she found the baby in the hammock and the bracelets and earrings in a shining heap behind the door, as the voice had said, but there was no Coora anywhere. Surprised and anxious, once more the mother ran back to the plantation.

"Coora is gone, husband!" she cried. "It must have been her own voice which we heard just now. Hark! She speaks again!"

Again from the tree they heard a sweet voice calling, "Mother, O Mother, I have left my earrings and bracelets behind the door and my little sister in the hammock. Good-by, Coo-o-o-ra!" As she spoke her own name Coora's voice warbled and crooned into the soft coo of a Ground-Pigeon's note, and her parents glancing up saw that this bird must be their child, their Coora, magically changed.

"Let us cut down the tree and catch the wicked girl!" cried the father. And seizing his axe he chopped away lustily until the tree fell with a crash. But even at that moment the Pigeon fluttered away to another tree, crooning again the soft syllables which she has spoken ever since, "Coo-ra, coo-ra, coo!"