Sigurd Our Golden Collie, and Other Comrades of the Road

by Katharine Lee Bates

Yet within an hour they might be fighting again, and I would find them spent and panting, glaring at one another from opposite sides of their limited arena, with deep cuts about the little warrior faces.

"Taka," I would remonstrate, "aren't you ashamed to treat your own clansman like this, when you wanted him so much?"

But Taka and penitence were far asunder. "It's my last tail-feather—chir-r-r! Koma, he hasn't any tail at all—chir-r-r! No more have I now. Don't care a grub. I pulled his out. Catch me that fly, can't you? Who-oo-oo-oop!"

Koma, whose song had an entrancing gypsy note, was so much the wilder of the two that Taka seemed comparatively tame. Koma's terror of human monsters was unconquerable, and his panics, whenever one of us neared the cage, soon destroyed the frail confidence that our long patience had been building up in Taka. Presently we had two out-and-out rebels on our hands, and even Dame Gentle, who "had a way" with birds, could not cajole them into a League of Lovers.

When the cage door was opened for putting in or taking out the small glass bathtub, it was a ticklish matter to prevent their escape, for they could dart like mice through the least crack and, sly atoms of conspiracy, were always on the lookout for a chance. Warned by bitter experience, we saw to it that the windows were closed before that perilous task was undertaken, but too often a victorious squeal from Koma would announce his exit, and Taka, hopping in sympathetic exultation from perch to perch, would urge him on with ancient Japanese war-cries while he soared from mantel to chandelier, vanished in the folds of a portiere or flashed from fern to rubber-plant. If he succeeded in reaching the entry, he would prolong the game by hiding in overshoes and umbrellas, while Taka, now that Koma was away, would at once set up his pleading, poignant call and never cease until the truant, snapping his pink bill and kicking fiercely with scratchy little claws, was thrust back into the cage. Much as Taka might play the tyrant, he could not bear having Koma out of his sight and reach. Once, after an especially savage duel in which Koma had been badly trampled and pecked, we put the wounded hero into a cage of his own and hung it in the adjoining room. Forthwith both those scamplings raised such a prodigious outcry and lament, taking on as if their naughty specks of hearts were broken, that we brought back Koma's cage and hung it in the window beside Taka's. But even so they scolded and protested and, as the shadows fell, established themselves each on the extreme end of a perch, as near one another as they could get, but with the cruel wires and a few inches of space between them. Still they fumed and fretted until we returned Koma, mauled as he was, to Taka's cage, when instantly they nestled their plumy sides close together and blissfully went to sleep.

Yet we kept both cages in use, separating our tiny incorrigibles when their battles waxed dangerous. They loved to talk them all over afterwards, gabbling like schoolboys, but if one of us chanced to approach the window—"Sshh! Don't tell the ogre," and in an instant they were dumb as toy idols. When we had time, we would occasionally, after taking all due precautions, throw wide their cage doors and invite them to enjoy the freedom of the room; but liberty so given they despised. Only stolen fruit is sweet. After much deliberation and consultation, they would stealthily steal out and skurry about the floor like rats for a while, hunting for bugs and worms. When it became evident that our rugs did not furnish such refreshment, they would cuddle up together in Taka's cage and spoon. Koma would tuck his shining wee head down on Taka's shoulder, and Taka would gently peck him all over from the tip of his bill to his claws. Then, more often than not, they would bristle and square for the fun of a fight. At this point we would try to catch Koma and put him back into his own safe cage, but even when his little coxcomb was so bloody that I had to wash it off under the faucet, he was the top of ingratitude, gasping and clattering with fury. All the while Taka, who had cut that poor pate open, would be trilling abuse. A pugnacious pair of fairy Japanese pirates they were!

We kept those midgets, a daily trouble and amusement, through the winter. They sang like angels when it pleased them and in the intervals conversed exclusively with each other in a harsh, metallic chatter that filled the house. But one sad June morning we found Taka in the bottom of the cage, on his back, the uplifted claws pathetically curled, the wee body stiff and cold.

"The bird is dead

That we have made so much on."

Koma knew what had happened and bewailed his loss in such a shrill, incessant keening that when, a few days later, an east wind gave him a swiftly fatal chill, we could only be glad to have that pitiful piping hushed.