“Oh, rookety cahoo!” she replied consolingly, “rookety cahoo!”
When I sold my farm and went back to the city I could not make up my mind to take the homers with me. They had enjoyed themselves so hugely in the country that I resolved to leave them. City life would mean confinement; for these farm-hatched birds, if let loose in Halifax, would endeavor to return to the farm.
I took only four pigeons back with me, Sukey, Whistler, Crippie, and Owlie. Poor Owlie died of some mysterious disease, and Crippie in his black tumbler suit, seems to mourn constantly and sincerely for her.
Whistler, I am sorry to say, after his return to the city, developed into a confirmed pugilist, and some one had to take time to fight with him every day. Bracing his two red feet firmly he would close his eyes, grunt vigorously, keep a tight hold on the finger that had been extended to him, and jerk convulsively like a dog that has hold of another dog’s throat. His pinches and twists were so scientific that at last we wore gloves while contesting with him. After getting pretty well warmed up he would vary the twisting process by giving hard slaps with his wings.
Two years ago I was going away from home for a few months, and begged my father to have the care of entertaining Whistler, for his beatings were too severe for my mother. My father obligingly consented, and every day while I was gone put on a pair of gloves and went into the aviary to let Whistler fight him.
The bird, at this time, used to sit the most of the time by the aviary door, waiting for us to come and amuse him. His upbringing with Sukey had unfitted him for pigeon society, and if he had not been so rough I would have allowed him to come upstairs with her.
She was shocked and disgusted by his bullying ways, and would have nothing to do with him. He deteriorated until he became dangerous, and one day this last summer when I went into the aviary I taxed him with the disappearance of Crippie, my beloved lame tumbler.
He, of course, gave me no satisfaction, and after a time I discovered my poor cripple creeping from under a tree with a battered and bleeding head, and one eye closed. I washed and dressed his wounds, and took Whistler upstairs to my room. “You are a very bad bird,” I said, “I don’t know what I am going to do with you.” He strutted and cooed and gurgled with glee, and walked round and round me. This was just what he wanted—to come upstairs with me.
“Go into that closet, you wicked pigeon,” I went on, “and sleep there.” This was still better fun. He walked into the closet, found some rubbers there, and began to talk to them. “At last you have some safe playmates,” I went on, “you may beat them as much as you like.”
There were two storm rubbers and two sandals, and as the days went by I saw that Whistler really considered them some new kind of pigeons. He bowed politely to them, pushed them about with his beak, talked to them, and one day I took an egg of Sukey’s, made a nest, and put it in the closet with a sandal on top of it. Then I called Whistler, who looked delighted with this new arrangement. He gave an agreeable nod to the sandal, gently moved it aside with his beak, and stepping on the nest, sat all night beside the egg.