“I heard you had a pair of bluejays you don’t want,” he remarked composedly, “and I thought I would take them and keep them in this cage.”
I tried to make him view this proposition from the bluejays’ point of view, and embraced the occasion of preaching again the doctrine that it is a cruel thing for a boy to rob a bird’s nest, or confine a bird in a cage. Also, that I wanted no eggs from nests, and no nestlings, except those that had wandered far from their parents, and who would starve if left to themselves.
I found no trouble in getting boys to understand this. Boys and girls are just what the grown people make them. If we are kind to birds they will imitate us.
Among the small birds that I have owned were some interesting native siskins, that I found languishing downtown in a tiny cage one hot August day. I bought them, and the delight of these wild birds on getting into roomy quarters was very touching.
They flew at once to the spruce and fir trees, and began eating their tips. Subsequently I gave them their liberty, and they raced each other to the tops of the tallest trees they could find.
A smaller bird than the siskin was a tiny, yellow warbler whose eyes seemed unnaturally large for the size of its body. A little girl brought it to me one morning, closely folded in her moist hands.
“It is a weeny thing,” she said in an awed voice. “I saw it in our stable. It would not go away, so I walked up to it and put my hands over it, for I was afraid pussy would get it.”
“It is one of the many warblers in this neighborhood,” I said. “They often come to the wire netting and talk to my birds. I will take good care of it.”
I intended to release the little creature as soon as he got rested, but he became so tame and followed me about with such unmistakable devotion shining from his dark eyes that I could not bear to part from him.
Sweet-Sweet I named my new pet, and one Sunday morning I was inexpressibly grieved to find that I had accidentally struck the little fellow as he came too near me.