My honest intention on leasing my forty-dollars-a-year paradise was simply to occupy the quaint old house for a season or two as a relief from the usual summer wanderings. I would plant nothing but a few hardy flowers of the old-fashioned kind—an economical and prolonged picnic. In this way I could easily save in three years sufficient funds to make a grand tour du monde.
That was my plan!
For some weeks I carried out this resolution, until an event occurred, which changed the entire current of thought, and transformed a quiet, rural retreat into a scene of frantic activity and gigantic undertaking.
In the early summer I attended a poultry show at Rooster, Mass., and, in a moment of impulsive enthusiasm, was so foolish as to pause and admire and long for a prize peacock, until I was fairly and hopelessly hypnotized by its brilliant plumage.
I reasoned: Anybody can keep hens, “me and Crankin” can raise ducks, geese thrive naturally with me, but a peacock is a rare and glorious possession. The proud scenes he is associated with in mythology, history, and art rushed through my mind with whirlwind rapidity as I stood debating the question. The favorite bird of Juno—she called the metallic spots on its tail the eyes of Argus—imported by Solomon to Palestine, essentially regal. Kings have used peacocks as their crests, have worn crowns of their feathers. Queens and princesses have flirted gorgeous peacock fans; the pavan, a favorite dance in the days of Louis le Grand, imitated its stately step. In the days of chivalry the most solemn oath was taken on the peacock’s body, roasted whole and adorned with its gay feathers, as Shallow swore “by cock and pie.” I saw the fairest of all the fair dames at a grand mediaeval banquet proudly bearing the bird to the table. The woman who hesitates is lost. I bought the pair, and ordered them boxed for “Breezy Meadows.”
On the arrival of the royal pair at my ’umble home, all its surroundings began to lose the charm of rustic simplicity, and appear shabby, inappropriate, and unendurable. It became evident that the entire place must be raised, and at once, to the level of those peacocks.
The house and barn were painted (colonial yellow) without a moment’s delay. An ornamental piazza was added, all the paths were broadened and graveled, and even terraces were dreamed of, as I recalled the terraces where Lord Beaconsfield’s peacocks used to sun themselves and display their beauties—Queen Victoria now has a screen made of their feathers.
My expensive pets felt their degradation in spite of my best efforts and determined to sever their connection with such a plebeian place.
Beauty (I ought to have called him Absalom or Alcibiades), as soon as let out of his traveling box, displayed to an admiring crowd a tail so long it might be called a “serial,” gave one contemptuous glance at the premises, and departed so rapidly, by running and occasional flights, that three men and a boy were unable to catch up with him for several hours. Belle was not allowed her liberty, as we saw more trouble ahead. A large yard, inclosed top and sides with wire netting, at last restrained their roving ambition. But they were not happy. Peacocks disdain a “roost” and seek the top of some tall tree; they are also rovers by nature and hate confinement. They pined and failed, and seemed slowly dying; so I had to let them out. Total cost of peacock hunts by the boys of the village, $11.33. I found that Beauty was happy only when admiring himself, or deep in mischief. His chief delight was to mount the stone wall, and utter his raucous note, again and again, as a carriage passed, often scaring the horses into dangerous antics, and causing severe, if not profane criticism. Or he would steal slyly into a neighbor’s barn and kill half a dozen chickens at a time. He was awake every morning by four o’clock, and would announce the glories of the coming dawn by a series of ear-splitting notes, disturbing not only all my guests, but the various families within range, until complaints and petitions were sent in. He became a nuisance—but how could he be muzzled?
And he was so gloriously handsome! Visitors from town would come expressly to see him. School children would troop into my yard on Saturday afternoons, “to see the peacock spread his tail,” which he often capriciously refused to do. As soon as they departed, somewhat disappointed in “my great moral show,” Beauty would go to a large window on the ground floor of the barn and parade up and down, displaying his beauties for his own gratification. At last he fancied he saw a rival in this brilliant, irridescent reflection and pecked fiercely at the glass, breaking several panes.