Bird Stories

by Edith M. Patch

They could be brave, too, when courage was needed, as they gave proof the day that a boy wished he hadn't climbed up and stuck his hand in at their door-hole, to find out what was there. While Mrs. Otus spread her feathers protectingly over her eggs, Solomon lay on his back, and, reaching up with beak and clutching claws, fought for the safety of his family. In the heat of the battle he hissed, whereupon the boy retreated, badly beaten, but proudly boasting of an adventure with some sort of animal that felt like a wildcat and sounded like a snake.

Besides, courage when needed, health, affection, good-nature, and plenty of food were enough to keep a family of owls contented. To be sure, some folk might not have been so well satisfied with the way the household was run. A crow, I feel quite sure, would not have considered the place fit to live in. Mrs. Otus was not, indeed, a tidy housekeeper. The floor was dirty—very dirty—and was never slicked up from one week's end to another. But then, Solomon didn't mind. He was used to it. Mrs. Otus was just like his own mother in that respect; and it might have worried him a great deal to have to keep things spick and span after the way he had been brought up. Why, the beautiful white eggshell he hatched out of was dirty when he pipped it, and never in all his growing-up days did he see his mother or father really clean house. So it is no wonder he was rather shiftless and easy-going. Neither of them had shown what might be called by some much ambition when they went house-hunting early that spring; for although the place they chose had been put into fairly good repair by rather an able carpenter,—a woodpecker,—still, it had been lived in before, and might have been improved by having some of the rubbish picked up and thrown out. But do you think Solomon spent any of his precious evenings that way? No, nor Mrs. Otus either. They moved in just as it was, in the most happy-go-lucky sort of way.

Well, whatever a crow or other particular person might think of that nest, we should agree that a father and mother owl must be left to manage affairs for their young as Nature has taught them; and if those five adorable babies of Solomon didn't prove that the way they were brought up was an entire success from an owlish point of view, I don't know what could.

Those five adorable babies of Solomon.

Take them altogether, perhaps you could not find a much more interesting family than the little Otuses. As to size and shape, they were as much alike as five peas in a pod; but for all that, they looked so different that it hardly seemed possible that they could be own brothers and sisters. For one of the sons of Solomon and two of his daughters had gray complexions, while the other son and daughter were reddish brown. Now Solomon and Mrs. Otus were both gray, except, of course, what white feathers and black streaks were mixed up in their mottlings and dapples; so it seems strange enough to see two of their children distinctly reddish. But, then, one never can tell just what color an owl of this sort will be, anyway. Solomon himself, though gray, was the son of a reddish father and a gray mother, and he had one gray brother and two reddish sisters: while Mrs. Otus, who had but one brother and one sister, was the only gray member of her family. Young or old, summer or winter, Solomon and Mrs. Otus were gray, though, young or old, summer or winter, their fathers had both been of a reddish complexion.

Now this sort of variation in color you can readily see is altogether a different matter from the way Father Goldfinch changes his feathers every October for a winter coat that looks much the same as that of Mother Goldfinch and his young daughters; and then changes every spring to a beautiful yellow suit, with black-and-white trimmings and a black cap, for the summer. It is different, too, from the color-styles of Bob the Vagabond, who merely wears off the dull tips of his winter feathers, and appears richly garbed in black and white, set off with a lovely bit of yellow, for his gay summer in the north. Again, it is something quite different from the color-fashions of Larie, who was not clothed in a beautiful white garment and soft gray mantle, like his father's and mother's, until he was quite grown up.

No, the complexion of Solomon and his sons and daughters was a different matter altogether, because it had nothing whatever to do with season of the year, or age, or sex. But for all that it was not different from the sort of color-variations that Mother Nature gives to many of her children; and you may meet now and again examples of the same sort among flowers, and insects, and other creatures, too.

But, reddish or gray, it made no difference to Solomon and Mrs. Otus. They had no favorites among their children, but treated them all alike, bringing them food in abundance: not only enough to keep them happy the night long, but laying up a supply in the pantry, so that the youngsters might have luncheons during the day.