The Bird Hospital

by Caroline Crowninshield Bascom

Now Bobbinette and Bobby have reached the dignity of having a little doll’s table and a chair of their own. They will stand up on their chairs and eat whatever I give them off of little butter-plates. If a meal worm is served, it is as good to them as a turkey dinner is to any of us.

Bobby was much more precocious with his singing than Cady. I worked many weeks with Cady before he would make a sound, but Bob began at once and has improved every day since.

One day late in the fall I took him down just to see if he would be afraid of the piano, but he was not in the least, and began to sing very softly. I meant to have looked up some new music for him, but he was ready before I was, so I began with the same old things Cady sung, and he seemed to like them just as well as Cady did. I have added to his repertoire that pretty little waltz song, “Love Comes Like a Summer Dream,” from the old opera, “Little Tycoon,” another waltz song, “I am Going Far Away, Love,” two parts from “When the Leaves Begin to Fall,” and a sweet lullaby.

A friend, who is a professional singer, came to hear him sing. I said to her: “I want you to listen to every note and tell me honestly just what you think of him.” He sang for a half-hour, only stopping while I changed the music. When we finished, she said: “I do not know which is the most marvellous, the pupil or the teacher. He is simply wonderful, never makes one discord, keeps perfect time, and carries the air as near as possible, and the little trills he puts in are simply bewitching.”

The lullaby he sings as soft and low as I do. What kind of a singer I am going to make of Bobbinette, time alone can tell. She will sing with me a little every morning up-stairs, but only twice have I been able to get her to sing down-stairs. I bring her down every day after Bob has had his singing lesson. Although she is such a fighter, she is very timid and nervous when down-stairs if there is any one there. She usually comes down on my shoulder, and I can feel every nerve in her body quiver as I lay my cheek against her.

When Bobbinette appears, Bob knows his lesson is over and that he can do as he pleases. He will go all over both rooms, perch on anything he sees fit, sing a little in a very low voice, come and look at Bobbinette and stand beside her on the perch. I have not given up getting them to sing a duet together. When Bobbinette sings up-stairs, Bob stops short, stands on one leg, and listens to her with a look as much as to say: “What are you trying to sing for? I am the singer.”

As Bobbinette is a good listener, I still have hopes of her. She is so pretty and still keeps her baby look, and when she listens she cocks her head on one side and looks so interested, and will puff out her breast and open her bill as wide as she can. For a treat after their lesson, they have some sugar wafers. They prefer the champagne ones, as they have more chocolate in them. They get on my shoulder and take the wafer out of my mouth. Then they have milk (which they love) in a whiskey glass. Some days they have two or three Zante currants, of which they are very fond.

My mother has all of her meals served in the back parlour, and it is a great treat for Bobbinette and Bobby to have their singing lesson before luncheon, then they stay down until afterward.

They will not make friends with any one but me, but they will get as near my mother as they dare, and see what she has to eat, but will not take anything from her.

I was very much frightened the other day to see a hair sticking out of Bobbinette’s bill. I was more frightened when I pulled out an eighth of a yard and could get no more, as it seemed to be wound around the lower part of her tongue. It was rather a difficult task to hold the bird, take a magnifying glass, and open the bill and look down. After a half-hour’s work at the hair, gently pulling it from side to side, it became loose and came out. The next day Bob came to me holding one leg up. As I looked at him, I thought he in some way had gotten a rubber band around his leg. You can imagine my surprise, when I took him in my hand, to find, instead of a rubber band, his hind claw was wound around his leg and caught with the nail. How it ever got that way, I have not the least idea.