Bird Stories

by Edith M. Patch

Although Solomon had night eyes, he was not blind by day. He passed the brightest hours quietly for the most part, dozing with both his outer eyelids closed, or sometimes sitting with those open and only the thin inner lid drawn sidewise across his eye. It seems strange to think of his having three eyelids; but, then, perhaps we came pretty near having a third one ourselves; for there is a little fold tucked down at the inner corner, which might have been a third lid that could move across the eye sidewise, if it had grown bigger. And sometimes, of a dazzling day in winter, when the sun is shining on the glittering snow, such a thin lid as Solomon had might be very comfortable, even for our day eyes, and save us the trouble of wearing colored glasses.

He passed the brightest hours dozing.

Lively as Solomon was by night, all he asked during the day was peace and quiet. He had it, usually. It was seldom that even any of the wild folk knew where his nest was; and when he spent the day outside, in some shady place, he didn't show much. His big feather-horns at such times helped make him look like a ragged stub of a branch, or something else he wasn't. It is possible for a person to go very close to an owl without seeing him; and fortunately for Solomon, birds did not find him every day. For when they did, they mobbed him.

One day, rather late in the summer, Cock Robin found him and sent forth the alarm. To be sure, Solomon was doing no harm—just dozing, he was, on a branch. But Cock Robin scolded and sputtered and called him mean names; and the louder he talked, the more excited all the other birds in the neighborhood became. Before long there were twenty angry kingbirds and sparrows and other feather-folk, all threatening to do something terrible to Solomon.

Now, Solomon had been having a good comfortable nap, with his feathers all hanging loose, when Cock Robin chanced to alight on the branch near him. He pulled himself up very thin and as tall as possible, with his feathers drawn tight against his body. When the bird-mob got too near him, he looked at them with his big round eyes, and said, "Oh!" in a sweet high voice. But his soft tone did not turn away their wrath. They came at him harder than ever. Then Solomon showed his temper, for he was no coward. He puffed his feathers out till he looked big and round, and he snapped his beak till the click of it could be heard by his tormentors. And he hissed.

But twenty enemies were too many, and there was only one thing to be done. Solomon did it. First thing those birds knew, they were scolding at nothing at all; and way off in the darkest spot he could find in the woods, a little owl settled himself quite alone and listened while the din of a distant mob grew fainter and fainter and fainter, as one by one those twenty birds discovered that there was no one left on the branch to scold at.

If Solomon knew why the day birds bothered him so, he never told. He could usually keep out of their way in the shady woods in the summer; but in the winter, when the leaves were off all but the evergreen trees, he had fewer places to hide in. Of course, there were not then so many birds to worry him, for most of them went south for the snowy season. But Jay stayed through the coldest days and enjoyed every chance he had of pestering Solomon. I don't know that this was because he really disliked the little owl. Jay was as full of mischief as a crow, and if the world got to seeming a bit dull, instead of moping and feeling sorry and waiting for something to happen, Jay looked about for some way of amusing himself. He was something of a bully,—a great deal of a bully, in fact,—this dashing rascal in a gay blue coat; and the more he could swagger, the better he liked it.

He seemed, too, to have very much the same feeling that we mean by joy, in fun and frolic. There was, perhaps, in the sight of a bird asleep and listless in broad daylight, something amusing. He was in the habit of seeing the feather-folk scatter at his approach. If he understood why, that didn't bother him any. He was used to it, and there is no doubt he liked the power he had of making his fellow creatures fly around. When he found, sitting on a branch, with two toes front and two toes back, a downy puff with big round eyes and a Roman nose and feather-horns sticking up like the ears of a cat, maybe he was a bit puzzled because it didn't fly, too. Perhaps he didn't quite know what to make of poor little Solomon, who, disturbed from his nap, just drew himself up slim and tall, and remarked, "Oh!" in a sweet high voice.