“I never heard such harsh and broken tones,” he said angrily. “Listen to Green-Top, how he holds his song like an endless strain.”
I tried again, but unfortunately I caught my uncle Silver-Throat’s eye, and broke down and gurgled and laughed in my father’s beak.
Didn’t I catch it! He and Green-Top both fell on me, and to save my feathers I flew straight to the most sheltered fir tree in the room, where Uncle Silver-Throat sat hunched up all day long, holding against the wall that part of his body which had once been a lovely tail.
He is a little Hartz Mountain canary, with a fluffy, mottled breast, and he has the most wonderful voice in the room.
He was laughing now. “Come here, poor little birdie,” he said. “There is no use trying to learn from your father; he is too impatient. He can’t sing, anyway. He is an English bird, and all his race are bred for form and appearance. My race is for song. It doesn’t matter how we look. Can he teach you the water-bubble, deep roll, bell, flute, warble, whistle, and the numberless trills I can? Does his voice have a range of four octaves?”
“No, indeed,” I said, “but he is my father, and I would like to learn from him.”
“That’s right,” he said heartily. “I really think you should control yourself a little more. Well, we’ll leave it this way. Go back to your father, when he becomes calm, and learn all you can from him, but come to me for extra lessons. I’ll teach you to sing much better than that scamp Green-Top does, for your voice is sweeter than his. He is a very disrespectful, saucy young bird. It is he that puts your father up to abusing you, I believe.”
“Uncle,” I said timidly, “two days ago you
had a fine tail. Now you have none. Why is it?”
He smiled. “I am quite a deep thinker, birdie, and yesterday as I sat dreaming on this branch, I failed to notice that new, golden spangled Lizard canary who has lately come to the bird-room. She was acting queerly about the five eggs she has just laid. Finally I did remark that she was breaking and eating them. It seems she had a poor home before she came here, where she was fed stale seeds. So Avis, being scantily fed and having no dainties given her, used to eat a nice fresh egg whenever she could get it. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘they are her own eggs. She has a right to eat them if she chooses,’ so I didn’t interfere.