The housekeeper stared at the bird. “O, law! what a nasty little thing!”
By this time the future little princess was nearly dead, and Titus in dismay called, “Hurry up.”
“Master Titus,” she replied, snappishly, “the girls are preparing dinner. You’ll have to wait.”
“I can’t wait,” returned the boy, angrily, and he began to step forward. “Don’t you see the bird’s dying? Higby, you talk to her.”
Titus’s eyes were flaming, and Higby, who was at heart a coward, and terrified of anyone in a real rage, subdued his own disturbed feelings, and in a wheedling voice asked Mrs. Blodgett for just a little “ro-ro-rolled oats,” with boiling water poured on.
Mrs. Blodgett frowned, and grumbled out something about having men and boys in the kitchen at mealtimes. However, she drew out her keys and went to the storeroom, and in a few minutes Titus and Higby were in a corner of the kitchen with a cup of soft food before them, but with nothing but their clumsy fingers to put it in the pigeon’s small beak.
The young bird smelt and felt the food, and nearly wriggled out of Titus’s grasp in trying to get it.
“T-t-this won’t do,” exclaimed the boy, when she jabbed her beak against his hand, “w-w-we’ve got to have a feather or a stick.”
Mrs. Blodgett gave them some turkey feathers and some toothpicks, and between them they managed to worry a little food into the pigeon’s beak.
“You ought to h-h-have a syringe,” said Higby, “the old birds fe-fe-feed their young ones by putting their b-b-beaks crosswise in their mouths to pu-pu-pump the food down.”