More Tales of the Birds

by W. Warde Fowler

“But haven’t you worked in your garden too, and are you to have no reward?” said the perverse Member. “Why can’t they go on with their grubs and caterpillars, instead of devouring your strawberries, which are in no way necessary to their existence?”

“Are they necessary to ours?” retorted the Poet. This brought the argument to a standstill: it had got twisted up in a knot. The Member wished to say that he had not been asked into the country to restrict himself to the necessaries of life; but friendship prevailed, and he suppressed himself. They returned to the house a trifle dejected, and trying to keep the tempers which those thoughtless birds had roused.

The next day the Poet arose very early in the morning, to gather strawberries for breakfast before the birds should have eaten them all. But the birds had got up still earlier, and were there before him; and now for the first time they aroused in his gentle heart a mild feeling of resentment. He stood there and even expostulated with them aloud; but they gave him little heed and as soon as his back was turned they were down on his strawberries again. That day he was persuaded to have a boy in, who was to come next morning at daybreak, and keep the birds away till after breakfast; then (so the Poet bargained) they should have their turn. Joseph Bates, with much satisfaction, but nobly concealing his triumph, undertook to procure a trusty and humane boy.

Next day the Poet in the early morning threw open his window and looked out on his garden. The humane boy was there, faithful to his trust—so faithful that, even as the Poet looked, he drew from his pocket a catapult, picked up a stone, and discharged it (luckily without effect) at a black marauder. The Poet quickly huddled on his clothes, and hurried down into the garden, only to find the humane boy on his knees among the dewy plants, eagerly devouring the fruit that the blackbirds should have had!

In two minutes he was turned neck and crop out of the garden. The Poet utterly refused to listen to his plea that a boy had as good a right to a strawberry as a blackbird. He was beginning to get irritated. For the moment he loved neither boys, nor strawberries, nor even blackbirds. Misfortunes never come alone, and as he turned from the garden gate he began to be aware that it was raining. He looked up, and for the first time for weeks he saw a dull leaden sky, with here and there a ragged edge of cloud driven across it from the west. The thirsty soil began to drink in the moisture, and dull and dusty leafage quickly grew clean and wholesome; but the strawberries—such few as they could find—had no flavour that day; and now too the slugs came out refreshed, and finished the work of the blackbirds.

The rain went on next day, and when at last it stopped the strawberry-bed was sodden and uninviting. The Member, tired of staying in the house, and eager to get back to his London suburb, where certain fruits should now be ripening on the walls of a small rectangular garden, happily free from birds, proposed that they should travel thither, and perhaps take a short tour on the Continent. By August, he urged, the garden would be delightful again, and the rowan-berries would be in all their glory; and perchance even the blackbirds would have gone into the country for a change, willing to leave poor Man a trifle in his own garden, after six months of stuffing themselves and their young.

To this plan the Poet was brought to consent for he felt a little tried by his friends both human and winged. But Bessie would not go; she had too much to do at home, she said. The fact was that during those rainy days she and the Member had entered into a conspiracy with Joseph Bates and the cook—a conspiracy of which indeed, poor soul, she felt a little ashamed; but the sight of those empty white jam-pots was too much for her, and a little plotting seemed unavoidable if they were to get filled. Joseph was instructed to procure a supply of nets, and the cook a supply of sugar. The conspirators kept their secrets, and for once a plot went off without detection. The day arrived; the Poet was carried off, half unwilling, into exile: by nightfall Joseph had netted all the gooseberries and currants, and within a week a fair fruit-harvest graced the cupboard shelves.

The blackbirds and their friends knew not what to make of it. It was bad enough to be disturbed, just as you were enjoying a juicy gooseberry, by the Poet mooning up and down the garden path; but to have their sweet freedom curtailed by grievous netting in the one romantic home of liberty left them in a malicious and self-seeking village—this was the unkindest cut of all. Depressed and angry, they determined to withdraw for a while and moult, and to leave the garden to the mercy of the grubs and wasps; when August came they might perhaps return to see how far wilful Man was having his own way.

Mid-August arrived, with its gentle indications of approaching autumn, its deepening colours and grey dewy mornings. The rowan-berries were turning a rich red, and Bessie longed for the Poet’s coming that he might fill his eyes with this last glory of the garden before the autumn set in. The nets had been long removed from the bushes, and the birds were beginning to return to the garden and resume their duties as grub-eaters—nay, some of them were even breaking out again into song. The only drawback to their happiness was the arrival of two nephews of the Poet for their holidays, who prowled about the garden with an air-gun, letting fly little leaden bullets at the birds with very uncertain aim.

These boys, thus employed the Poet found on his return, and strictly enjoined to restrict their sport to such cornfields as they might find to be the especial prey of the omnivorous sparrow. He noted the presence of his birds with joy, and was still more delighted to find his treasured rowans covered with pendulous bunches of magnificent red berries, which would be a daily treat to his eyes for weeks to come. They had home-made jam that evening, and he took it as a matter of course and asked no questions.