When I got him it was winter-time, and I did not dare to put him in the aviary lest he should take cold. So, as he could not go down to Minnie and Jennie, I brought them up to him. They had a large cage near one of the windows, but not too close to it, for canaries do not like draughts any better than human beings do. They were supposed to stay in their cage, but they spent the most of their time out in the room with me.
Norwich, as I called my beauty, was enraptured with these new birds, and almost agitated himself to death in trying to make himself agreeable. Minnie was his favorite from the first, and Jennie fell into unhappy jealousy.
Minnie really had a most extraordinary amount of character and individuality for such a tiny bird. She was self-willed, determined, clever, and full of resources. She made up her mind that Norwich should like her better than he did Jennie, and she swayed him to her will. He was good-natured, agreeable, and anxious to please—a mere tool in the hands of such a clever bird as Minnie. When Minnie had, by various wiles and devices, succeeded in attaching him to herself, she began to think of nest-making.
I cared nothing about raising young birds, and gave them only an amused attention. She flew all about my study, picked every floating bit of down and shining motes from the floor, seized feathers and scraps of paper, and chose as her first nesting-place—one of the gas globes. As fast as she placed a bit of nesting material in the globe, it fell to the floor. This did not discourage her for a long time, for the patience of birds is infinite. They work steadily and persistently at anything they wish to accomplish, and seem to think with the great Napoleon, that a difficulty is merely something to be overcome. They are also sweet-tempered, and not at all resentful toward any person or any bird who might help them in accomplishing their object, whatever it happens to be, but who does not do so.
So Minnie worked steadily on day after day until, at last, she was convinced that the globe was certainly bottomless, and I was convinced that I was acting very shabbily in not encouraging so industrious and patient a bird. I therefore fashioned a rough nest out of twigs—for I was new to the business myself—and put it in a corner of her cage.
She watched me with great interest and curiosity, and as soon as I had left the cage, flew to it, examined it, and adopted it as her own. It was a shaky structure, but the little uncomplaining bird found it quite satisfactory, and was delighted to discover that the pieces of cloth and string she put in did not fall through the bottom of it.
This was not my first experience with the curiosity of birds; I had found that I could not enter the aviary and throw down even a scrap of paper without having a cloud of birds around it as soon as my back was turned, picking at it, pulling it, as if to discover why I had put it there.
Birds and animals know more than we think they do, and they certainly have some way of reading our minds, probably by some slight visible sign.
When my father in his study forms the design of going downtown, the dog at his feet rises, and shows by his actions that he knows of this design. What tells him? My father has done nothing to acquaint the dog with his purpose just formed.
Apparently he has done nothing, yet he has. He has put by his pen with an air of finality, or he has pushed back his chair in a certain way, or he has glanced at his watch. Something tells the little, intelligent creature, who guesses the meaning of my father’s action more quickly than we human beings would, that he is going out of the house.