To add to our troubles, we could not get into our cottage that night. Fortunately, our landlady took boarders, and offered us a room in her house. We gladly accepted this offer, and putting the subdued Teddy in a tool-shed, took the birds in the house.
My sister says she never was more tired in her life than she was that night. We were sleeping blissfully, when we were awakened by a well-known sound. The naughty little owls, glad of the peace and quietness of the night after the turmoil of the day, were hooting persistently and melodiously.
“The landlady and the boarders,” gasped my sister; “they will hear and wake up. Can’t you stop the little wretches?”
I sprang out of bed, and addressed a solemn remonstrance to Solomon and Betsy. They were exceedingly glad to see me, and distending their little throats, continued to hoot, their clear, sweet young voices carrying only too well on the still Californian night air.
Then the chipmunk woke up and began to slide up and down an inclined piece of wood in his part of the cage. We were in despair. We could not sleep, until I had the happy thought of giving the owls a bath. I seized Betsy, held her in a basin of water, and wet her feathers considerably. Then I served Solomon in the same way, and for the rest of the night the tiny little things occupied themselves in smoothing their wet plumage. The chipmunk quieted down, and we had peace.
When we got into the cottage I had a carpenter build a small aviary at the back of it, with a box for rainy weather. The nights were not too cold for my hardy birds. Indeed, they were not too cold for many semi-tropical ones. I found a bird fancier not far from me, who had built a good-sized, open-air aviary, where he kept canaries and foreign finches all the year round, with only a partly open, glass shelter for the birds to use when it rained.
My sparrowhawk did not seem unhappy in my aviary, but he never had the contented, comfortable expression that the owls had. His apathy was pathetic, and the expression of his beautiful, cruel eyes was an unsatisfied one. In time, I should have allowed him to go, but suddenly he fell ill. I think I overfed him, for I got him into the habit of taking a late supper, always leaning out the window and handing him a piece of meat on the end of a stick before I went to bed.
I brought him into the warm kitchen, where he moped about for a few days. Just before he died he came hopping toward the parlor, where I sat entertaining a friend. I often took him in there on the broad windowsill and talked to him as I sat sewing.
He stood in the doorway, gave me a peculiar look, as if to say, “I would come in if you were alone,” hopped back to the kitchen, and in a short time was no more.
My sister and I mourned sincerely for our pretty bird, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that I might have done better if I had left him in his own habitat—but then he might have starved to death if his parents had not found him. Would death by starvation have been any more painful than his death with me? Possibly some larger creature might have killed him swiftly and mercifully—it was a puzzling case, and I resolved to give up worrying about it. I had done what I considered was best, and I tried to console myself for his death in petting the dear little owls that had become so tame that they called to my sister and me whenever they saw us, and loved to have us take them in our hands and caress them.