RUDDY IS GONE
Rick dropped his strap of school books that had been swinging around his
head as he ran home.
"Come on, Ruddy!" the boy called to his dog. "We'll see who is doing
that whistling!"
And by the sharp, short bark the setter gave his master knew that the
dog was as ready as he, himself, to find out who was trying to play a
trick on them, if anyone was.
"Wait a minute, Rick!" called his mother, as the two friends ran toward
the gate. "What was that you said about a tramp sailor?"
Rick repeated what the coast guard had told him.
"Then you'd better be careful how you let Ruddy run loose," went on Mrs.
Dalton. "Do you think the sailor is hiding out there now, trying to
call Ruddy?"
"That's what I think, Mother," the boy answered. "But if anyone who
doesn't really own Ruddy tries to take him away from me----" Rick paused
when he had said this much. He really didn't know what he would do. "But
I guess Ruddy won't go with them; will you, old fellow?" he asked his
dog.
And from the manner in which Ruddy barked and capered about the boy he
had grown to care for so much, it did seem that no one else could ever
get the dog away.
Once again the whistle sounded, just as if it were Rick himself, or an
echo of the boy's shrill call. Ruddy was puzzled by it and, lifting up
his ears, looked up into Rick's face, as if to ask what it all meant.
"Come on! We'll find it out!" called the boy.
Together they ran to the street. Rick looked up and down. No one was in
sight. And then, again came the shrill call. It sounded overhead.
"Someone is up in a tree!" cried Rick. "Is that you, Chot?" he called,
thinking perhaps his chum was trying to play a little joke on him.
There was no answer, but, after a moment the whistle sounded again, and
then followed a loud, harsh call of:
"Haw! Haw! Haw!"
If you could have seen the looks, then, on the faces of Rick and Ruddy
you would have laughed. Both boy and dog showed how very much they had
been fooled by the whistling of the pet crow.
For it was Rick's black bird, Haw-Haw by name, who had been doing the
whistling. The sly fellow had listened to Rick until he could imitate
the boy perfectly and now, up in a tree into which he had managed to
flutter, Haw-Haw was calling Ruddy.
"Come down out of that, Haw-Haw! Come down!" called Rick, and there was
a flittering amid the branches of the tree on which there were still a
few leaves. Haw-Haw, whose broken wing had healed, not enough to permit
him to fly well, but enough so that he could flutter up into the low
branches of trees, came half tumbling down, half soaring and perched
himself on Rick's shoulder.
"I didn't know you could whistle!" exclaimed the boy. "I was going to
teach you, Haw-Haw, but I guess you must have taught yourself. Whistle
again for me!"
But Haw-Haw did not seem to want to do this. He preened his glossy black
feathers with his black bill, and made funny little noises down in his
throat.
Ruddy, his head on one side, peered up at the crow on Rick's shoulder
and the queer, puzzled look was still on the dog's face.
"It's all right, Ruddy! It's all right," said Rick, patting his setter's
head. "It was only Haw-Haw whistling for you."
Rick had been so busy having fun and going to school that, after his
father had set the crow's broken wing, the boy had almost forgotten
about his black bird. But Haw-Haw had grown stronger and he had grown
tame--so tame that he would perch on the shoulders of any members of the
family and let them feed him. Rick had been talking of teaching the crow
to talk and whistle, as he had read could be done. But he kept putting
it off, for one reason and another, until he was much surprised by
hearing the crow's whistle.
"Did you find who it was trying to call Ruddy?" asked Rick's mother, as
he came back in the yard with the crow on his shoulder and the dog
leaping around him, barking joyously and excitedly. Ruddy did not
altogether like Haw-Haw being so friendly with Rick.
"It was my crow whistling!" said Rick.
"Your crow?" exclaimed Mrs. Dalton, in surprise.
"Yes. He must have been listening to me at different times, until he got
so he could whistle just as I do when I call Ruddy. And Haw-Haw
certainly sounded natural. He fooled even you; didn't he, Ruddy?"
The dog barked as much as to say:
"He certainly did!"
Just how Haw-Haw learned to whistle Rick never found out. Certainly the
boy did not cut the crow's tongue, and perhaps whistling came natural to
the black bird. And it may be that it was not a regular "whistle" at
all, but merely a sound like that. Of course a bird has no lips to
pucker up and whistle with, as boys have, and some girls, too. But many
birds utter whistling notes when they sing, or give their calls. The
quail, or Bob White, seems to whistle, and so does the Whip-poor-will.
And I have heard many men who can, by whistling with their tongue and
lips, imitate many birds. I have even heard a man whistle like a robin,
and so nearly perfectly as to deceive a cat. Pussy came running into the
room where the man was whistling, looking around to find the feathered
songster.
So it is easily possible for a crow to imitate the whistle of a boy, and
this is what Haw-Haw had done. He must have practised by himself in the
woodshed, whistling in low notes at first, as a singer does who is not
quite sure of the air. And then, when he found he could imitate Rick's
cheerful call to his dog, the crow had fluttered out into a tree, and
had sent his shrill notes echoing.
"Well, now I know you can whistle I'm going to teach you to talk,
Haw-Haw," said Rick.
The boy began that very afternoon on the crow's further education. Rick
got from the kitchen some pieces of meat, which the black bird liked
very much, and, holding one chunk up near the sharp, strong bill, said:
"Now, Haw-Haw, let me hear you say something! Say 'I want a piece of
meat!'"
But whether this was too long a sentence for the crow to start on, or
whether he did not understand what Rick wanted I can not say. At any
rate Haw-Haw said nothing. He did not even whistle. He just held his
head on one side, as Ruddy sometimes did when Rick was talking to him,
and Haw-Haw looked at the chunk of meat held in Rick's fingers so
temptingly near.
"Go on! Say something!" exclaimed Rick.
Suddenly Ruddy, who was sitting up just behind his master, gave a bark.
Ruddy's eyes, too, were on the meat, and perhaps he thought his boy
master was talking to him. At any rate Ruddy barked, Rick turned his
head aside for a moment to speak to his setter pet.
And at that instant Haw-Haw, seeing his chance, took it. Rick felt a
sudden jab at his fingers, the meat was snatched from them and then
with a loud "Haw! Haw!" the crow fluttered up to the roof of the
woodshed to eat the morsel.
"Oh, that isn't fair!" cried Rick, but he had to laugh. "That isn't
playing the game!"
"Haw! Haw!" croaked the crow, and it sounded just as if he were laughing
at Rick. He may have been, too, for all I know.
That was the beginning of the crow's education at the hands of Rick, but
not many times after that could the black bird fool his master by
snatching away the meat or other dainty. Rick was more careful.
Rick did manage to get Haw-Haw to say a few words. At least the boy
declared they were words, though his father and mother said they could
not understand them. Mazie said she could, so perhaps it was because Mr.
and Mrs. Dalton did not stop long enough to listen.
And Haw-Haw also tried some other whistling notes, different from the
dog-call he had learned of Rick. But that dog-call was the best thing he
did, and he often fooled Ruddy by fluttering out to a bush in front of
the house and giving the shrill whistle by which Rick used to summon
his pet on coming from school.
After a while, when Haw-Haw knew he could play his tricks on Ruddy, the
crow did it so often that the poor dog was quite puzzled about it. Ruddy
would be sleeping on the porch, perhaps, waiting for Rick to come from
school to have a romp across the fields. And then, about time for the
classes to be dismissed, the crow would softly flutter out from his nest
in the woodshed and take his perch in a bush, or on a low branch of a
tree. There he would give his whistle.
With a bark of welcome Ruddy would awaken from his sleep and dash off
the porch out to the front gate. There he would glance up and down the
street, where no Rick was in sight.
With a queer look on his face, the dog would then go back to the porch,
growling and glancing up at the tree where the crow was perched. Ruddy
knew he had been fooled. But, no matter how often this happened, he
would always jump up and run out whenever Haw-Haw whistled. Ruddy could
not tell the difference between the notes of the crow and the call of
Rick. As I told you a dog depends on his scent, or by smelling with his
nose, to tell his master and friends, and not on his ears or eyesight,
though a dog's hearing is better than his vision.
"I guess I'll have to stop whistling for Ruddy when I come home from
school," said Rick to his mother one day, when he had come in with his
books, and had been told that Haw-Haw had played the trick three times
on the setter that afternoon. "It's too bad to plague him that way. I
won't whistle any more when I come along."
"I guess it would be just as well not to," agreed Mrs. Dalton. "Haw-Haw
is too smart for Ruddy. And he has another trick, too, Rick."
"You mean Haw-Haw has?"
"Yes, he took some spoons off the kitchen table to-day and dropped them
in the hollow of a tree in front of the house. I saw him, or I wouldn't
have known about it. It's quite a deep hollow and I could hardly reach
down in and get the spoons. And what else do you think I found down in
there?"
"I don't know. Was it my roller skate key that I lost?"
"No, but it was the new tea strainer I lost. That disappeared last week.
Haw-Haw must have carried it off. I have heard that crows like to pick
up shiny things and hide them, but this is the first time our crow had
done such a trick."
"Say, he's a regular trick crow; isn't he?" exclaimed Rick.
"Too much so!" laughed Mrs. Dalton. "I must watch him."
"And I must try to teach him some more words to say," went on Rick. "He
can almost say 'I want my supper' now."
"Well, I'm glad you think it sounds like something," said Rick's mother.
"To me your crow's talk only resembles a lot of screeching and
jabbering."
"Oh, he'll learn to talk all right," declared Rick. "I'm going to teach
him now."
And when Chot came over, a little later, the two boys took turns at
educating the black crow. They seemed to be satisfied with what Haw-Haw
learned, though when the crow was brought in the house, perched on
Rick's shoulder, and asked to repeat his latest lesson, he only flapped
his one good wing and whistled shrilly.
"Oh, say! You're a tease!" cried Rick, and Mazie laughed at the two
boys.
But Rick gave up whistling to Ruddy on coming home from school, and the
crow soon learned that he could no longer fool the dog. Ruddy was
growing wiser and Haw-Haw gradually stopped that trick, though he did
not forget how to whistle.
However, though Rick gave up sounding his signal call to his dog on
coming from school, Ruddy seemed to know about the time to expect his
boy master. He would be on the watch and waiting, and, when the hands of
the clock pointed to a little after three, Rick would race out to the
gate and wait for his chum; for that is what Rick and Ruddy were
now--chums.
One afternoon Rick came running in the gate, swinging his books like the
pendulum of a clock that was running on double time.
"Where's Ruddy? Where's my football?" cried the boy. "We're going to
have some fun--all the boys over in the big field! Where's Ruddy?
Where's my football?"
"Why, your football must be just where you left it," Mrs. Dalton
answered. "As for Ruddy, didn't he come to meet you?"
"Come to meet me? No. Was he here a while ago?"
"Just a little while ago, yes. He was asleep on the porch. I heard a
whistle, and saw him rush out."
"But, Mother, I didn't whistle for him! I don't call him that way any
more since Haw-Haw played that trick. I didn't call Ruddy!"
"You didn't?"
"No!" was the answer. Rick was beginning to be alarmed.
"Someone whistled and he ran out," went on Mrs. Dalton.
"I wonder if it was Haw-Haw?" spoke the boy.
Just then the crow fluttered out from the kitchen, where he sometimes
went to sleep behind the stove.
"It couldn't have been him," declared Rick.
"It was someone," said Mrs. Dalton. "I saw Ruddy run out as he always
does when he goes to meet you, and----"
Rick did not stop to hear what else his mother had to say. He rushed for
the front gate and looked up and down the street. No Ruddy was in sight,
and a great fear came into the boy's heart.
Ruddy was gone.