About them I had no misgivings. They would certainly have died if I had not adopted them, and there was no question about their happiness. They were satisfied with a state of captivity. They had so far lost one of their owl habits, for they kept awake nearly all day, and slept nearly all night—and they could see quite well in the most brilliant Californian sunlight, and that is pretty brilliant. A cat or a dog many yards distant would cause them to raise excitedly the queer little ear tufts that play so prominent a part in the facial expression of some owls, and they would crack their beaks together and hiss angrily if the enemy came too near.
Cats and dogs frightened them, and a broom merely excited them. When strangers wanted to see the elevation of these tufts, a broom, swiftly passed over the floor, would cause Solomon and Betsy to become very wide awake, with feather tufts straight up in the air. I never saw them abjectly and horribly frightened but once. A lady had brought her handsome parrot into the room where the owls were. The poor little mites put up their ear tufts, swayed to and fro on their perch, and instead of packing their feathers and becoming thin and elongated in appearance, as they did for cats and dogs, they puffed themselves out, snapped their beaks, and uttered the loudest hissing noise I had ever heard from them.
From their extremity of fear I concluded that their instinct told them this danger was so imminent that they must make themselves as formidable as possible.
The parrot was of course quickly removed, and I took care that they should never again see another one.
CHAPTER II
THE OWLS START ON THEIR TRAVELS
Betsy and Solomon lived happily through that winter and spring, and before summer came we had made up our minds to return to the East. What should we do with the owls? They would be a great deal of trouble to some one. They required an immense amount of petting, and a frequent supply of perfectly fresh meat. No matter how busy we were, one of us had to go to the butcher every other day.
We began to inquire among our friends who would like a nice, affectionate pair of owls? There seemed no great eagerness on the part of any one to take the pets we so much valued. Plans for their future worried me so much that at last I said to my sister, “We will take them East with us.”
The owls, who were to take so long a journey, became objects of interest to our friends, and at a farewell tea given to us, a smartly dressed young man vowed that he must take leave of Solomon and Betsy. Calling for a broom, he slowly passed it to and fro over the carpet before them, while they sat looking at him with lifted ear tufts that betrayed great interest in his movements.
We trembled a little in view of our past moving experiences, but we were devoted to the little creatures and, when the time came, we cheerfully boarded the overland train at Oakland.