GOLDEN DICKY
[Illustration: GOLDEN DICKY]
GOLDEN DICKY
THE STORY OF A CANARY
AND HIS FRIENDS
BY
MARSHALL SAUNDERS
_Author of “Beautiful Joe,” etc._
_WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY GEORGE W. HOOD_
[Illustration]
“_For I am my brother’s keeper
And I will fight his fight;
And speak the word for beast and bird
Till the world shall set things right._”
—ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1919, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
I dedicate this story to my fellow-members of the TORONTO HUMANE
SOCIETY and especially to our President, THE RIGHT REVEREND JAMES
FIELDING SWEENEY, Lord Bishop of Toronto, who at all times takes a
most faithful and painstaking interest in our work for dumb animals
and for children.
MARSHALL SAUNDERS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION ix
I. I BEGIN THE STORY OF MY LIFE 1
II. A TRIP DOWNSTAIRS 17
III. SAMMY-SAM AND LUCY-LOO 26
IV. A SAD TIME FOR A CANARY FAMILY 32
V. MY NEW FRIEND, CHUMMY HOLE-IN-THE-WALL 41
VI. CHUMMY TELLS THE STORY OF A NAUGHTY SQUIRREL 51
VII. MORE ABOUT SQUIRRIE 66
VIII. CHUMMY’S OPINIONS 72
IX. A BIRD’S AFTERNOON TEA 84
X. ANOTHER CALL FROM CHUMMY 95
XI. BILLIE SUNDAE BEGINS THE STORY OF HER LIFE 103
XII. JUST ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER 120
XIII. MRS. MARTIN ADOPTS BILLIE 129
XIV. BILLIE AND I HAVE ONE OF OUR TALKS 143
XV. THE CHILDREN NEXT DOOR 154
XVI. STORIES ABOUT THE OLD BARN 166
XVII. I LOSE MY TAIL 183
XVIII. NELLA THE MONKEY 195
XIX. SQUIRRIE’S PUNISHMENT 206
XX. SISTER SUSIE 218
XXI. MORE ABOUT SISTER SUSIE 227
XXII. A TALKING DOG 236
XXIII. THIRD COUSIN ANNIE 248
XXIV. BLACK THOMAS CATCHES A BURGLAR 256
XXV. THE CHILDREN’S RED CROSS ENTERTAINMENT 265
XXVI. THE BEGINNING OF MY FAMILY CARES 272
INTRODUCTION
Known the world over as the champion of the dumb animals, to which her
lively imagination has given human speech, Marshall Saunders, the
author of “Beautiful Joe,” a book translated into many languages, has
enlarged her range of humanitarian interests to take the feathered
world into her protecting care. A new story of hers, entitled “Golden
Dicky, the Story of a Canary and His Friends,” presents a moving plea,
not only in behalf of those prime favorites of the household, the
canaries, but of other birds as well, even the too much despised
sparrow coming in for anything but half-hearted defence. While one may
feel that his imagination must take to itself powerful pinions to
follow the story, particularly in the dialogues, yet at the same time
he is made aware of how largely the practical enters into it. Miss
Saunders has made a careful study of animal and bird life, and
introduces into her pages much interesting information of the ways and
the needs of her humble protégés, and many useful hints as to their
proper care, so that the story is something more than entertaining.
While Dicky-Dick’s chronicles mainly concern the familiar feathered
folk of our homes and their leafy environment, the author cannot
forego an excursion into her old haunts, and in Billie Sundae, the
fox-terrier, a capital new chapter is added to the literature of dog
biography and autobiography. The squirrels also come in for a share of
attention. Squirrie, the bad squirrel, supplies a proper villain to
the cast of characters, with the sensible and good Chickari to redeem
his race from opprobrium.
The children who read these delightful pages will surely form lasting
friendships with Dicky-Dick, the cheery songster, and Chummy, the
stout-hearted little sparrow, and all the robins and grackles and
crows who with the dogs and squirrels and Nella, the monkey, make up
the lively company embraced in these chronicles. In Mrs. Martin, the
kind-hearted lover and protector of birds, and her gentle daughter,
“Our Mary,” we have illustrated the kindly relations which should
obtain between man and the beasts of the field and the fowl of the
air, over which the Creator has given him the responsibility of
dominion.
EDWARD S. CASWELL.
_PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS_
DICKY-DICK, _the canary_.
DIXIE, _his mother_.
NORFOLK, _his father_.
GREEN-TOP, _his brother_.
SILVER-THROAT, _his uncle_.
CHUMMY HOLE-IN-THE-WALL, _his friend the sparrow_.
MRS. MARTIN, _who owns_ DICKY-DICK.
OUR MARY, _her daughter_.
MR. MARTIN, _her husband_.
SAMMY-SAM, _her nephew_.
LUCY-LOO, _her niece_.
BILLIE SUNDAE, _her dog_.
SISTER SUSIE, _her dove_.
VOX CLAMANTI, _the robin_.
SLOW-BOY, _the pigeon_.
SUSAN, _his mate_.
SQUIRRIE, _a bad squirrel_.
CHICKARI, _a good squirrel_.
BLACK THOMAS, _the boarding-house cat_.
NELLA, _the monkey_.
FREDDIE, }
BEATRICE, } _Children in the boarding-house_.
NIGER, _the talking dog_.
GOLDEN DICKY
GOLDEN DICKY
CHAPTER I
I BEGIN THE STORY OF MY LIFE
When I look in a mirror and see my tiny, bright black eyes, it seems
queer to think that once upon a time, when I was a baby bird, I was
more blind than a bat.
My sense of sight was the last to wake up. I could hear, smell, taste
and touch, before I could see. We were three naked little canary
babies in a nest, and at intervals, we all rose up, threw back our
heads, opened our beaks, and our mother Dixie daintily put the lovely
egg food down our tiny throats. Oh, how good it used to taste! I never
had enough, and yet I did have enough, for my mother knew how much to
feed me, and when I got older, I understood that most young things
would stuff themselves to death, if the old ones did not watch them.
I shall never forget the first day my eyes opened. I couldn’t see
things properly for hours. There was a golden mist or cloud always
before me. That was my mother’s beautiful yellow breast, for she
hovered closely over us, to keep us warm. Then I was conscious of
eyes, bright black ones, like my own. My mother was looking us all
over affectionately, to see that we were well-fed, warm and clean, for
canary housekeepers are just like human beings. Some are careful and
orderly, others are careless and neglectful.
Then my father would come and stare at us. He is a handsome Norwich
canary, of a deep gold color, with a beautiful crest that hangs over
his eyes, and partly obscures his sight, making him look like a little
terrier dog. He used to fling up this crest and look at us from under
it. Then he would say, “Very fine babies, quite plump this lot,” and
he would fly away for more lettuce or egg food, or crushed hemp, for
we had enormous appetites, and it took a great deal of his time to
help my mother keep our crops quite full and rounded out.
How we grew! Soon I was able to look in the mirror opposite our nest,
and I could see the change in us from day to day. Canaries grow up
very quickly, and when we were a fortnight old, we had nice feathers
and were beginning to feed ourselves. There was myself, a little
brother, and a sister. I had a great deal to learn in those fourteen
days, which would be like two or three years in the life of a child.
My little mother Dixie used to tell us stories as she brooded over us.
Some people do not know that when a mother bird hovers over her little
ones, and twitters softly to them, that she is telling them tales,
just as a human mother amuses her babies.
My mother told us that we ought to be very happy little birds, for we
were not in a cage where canaries are usually hatched, but in a
good-sized bird-room, in a comfortable nest. This nest was a small
wooden box, placed on a shelf high up on the wall, and we could stand
on the edge of it and look all about the room.
My mother also told us that we must love, next to our parents, the
young girl who owned this bird-room and who came in many times a day
to feed and water us and to see that we were all comfortable.
I shall never forget how I felt the first day I rose up in our nest,
stepped to the edge of our box, and looked about the bird-room.
It seemed enormous to me. I gasped and fell back in the nest. Then I
looked again, and this time the sight did not make me feel so weak,
and I straightened things out.
It was, or is, for I often visit it yet, a good-sized attic room, with
one big window looking east, and a door opening into a hall. Standing
two and three deep all round the room were rows of fir trees, straight
but not very tall, and looking like little soldiers. They were in big
pots of earth, and my mother told me that every few months they were
taken out and fresh ones were put in. Running between the trees and
resting on their branches were long, slender poles and perches, for
fir branches are not usually very good to sit on. A bird likes a
spreading branch, not one that hugs the tree.
In the middle of the room was a tiny fountain, with rock work round
it. Night and day it murmured its pretty little song, and the birds
splashed and bathed and played games in the shallow basin under it.
There were not big birds in the room, so we did not need a deep
bathing pool.
Beyond the fountain were the trays of green sods and dishes of food
and seeds. Oh, what good things we had to eat, for as we were not
caged birds, we could have quite rich food. Then we took so much
exercise flying to and fro that it sharpened our appetites. I shall
never forget the good taste of the egg food that I fed myself, and the
bread and milk, the bits of banana and orange, and pineapple and
apples, and pears and grapes—the little saucers of corn meal and
wheat and oatmeal porridge, and the nice, firm, dry seeds—rape,
millet, canary, hemp and sometimes as a great treat a little poppy
seed.
The floor was covered with gravel and old lime, and once a month a man
came in and swept it all up and put down a fresh lot.
Near the fountain was one small wicker chair, and there Miss Martin,
the lame girl who owned us all, used to sit by the hour and watch us.
As I sat, a weak young thing, on the edge of my nest, looking down
into the room, it seemed to me that there were a great many birds
flying about, and I should never be able to tell one from the other.
However, I soon learned who they all were. First of all, there was my
lovely mother Dixie, an American canary, with dainty whirls of
feathers on her wings, my golden colored father Norfolk, my father’s
sister Silkie, her roller canary mate Silver-Throat, who was a tiny,
mottled bird, with an exquisite voice, and about twenty other canaries
of different breeds, some Australian parakeets, African love-birds,
nonpareils, and indigoes, and in the nest beside me my little sister
Cayenna and my brother Green-Top, so called from his green crest. I am
a plainhead.
My mother told me a great many stories about all these other birds,
but I will not put them down just now.
I must tell, though, about my naming. I had a trouble just as soon as
my eyes opened. My big brother Green-Top was jealous of me. He is a
larger, handsomer bird than I am, but even when we were babies my
parents said that his voice would not be as good as mine. Just as soon
as he got the use of his wings he began to beat me. My parents
naturally stood up for me, because I am smaller and weaker and plainer
looking. It was really surprising that I should turn out to be such an
ordinary-looking little bird, when I have such handsome parents.
Green-Top told me that the old birds in the room said I was the exact
image of my grandmother Meenie, who was a very common little bird from
very common stock, that Miss Mary Martin brought into the bird-room
out of pity for her.
Well, anyway, our Mary Martin was not slow in finding out that I was
set upon, and one day as she stood watching us, she said to me, “Come
here, you golden baby. I haven’t named you yet.”
She held out her hand as she spoke, and I lighted on her shoulder and
got a lump of sugar for being obedient.
“I like the way you stand up to that naughty brother of yours,” she
said. “You are a little hero. I am going to call you Richard the
Lion-Hearted and Dicky-Dick for short.”
All the birds were listening to her, and when she stopped speaking you
could hear all over the room the funny little canary sounds, like
question marks, “Eh! What! La! La! Now what do you think of that! Such
a grand name for a little plainhead bird!”
Naming a bird was a very exciting event in the bird-room and always
caused a great deal of talk.
Green-Top was furious. His name sounded quite short and of no account,
compared with Richard the Lion-Hearted. To show his displeasure he
dashed across the room and brushed our Mary’s ears with his wings.
That was a favorite trick of the birds—to brush the hair or the ears
of Miss Mary, or to light on her head, and the way they did it showed
the state of their feelings toward her.
“Naughty boy!” she said, shaking her head at him. “Hemp seed for every
bird in the room except Green-Top,” and she fed us an extra portion of
this seed we liked best while he, knowing better than to come forward,
sat in a corner and sulked.
She was just like a mother to us all, so good and indulgent, but she
would not have any bullies in her bird home, and if a bird got too bad
she gave him away.
After a while she went out of the room, and Green-Top flew at me, beat
me, and was beginning to chase me most wickedly, when our father
called us to have a singing lesson.
By this time we were six weeks old, and had been driven out of our
nest three weeks ago. My mother was now getting ready for a second
family. Miss Mary had given her a fresh box with a new nest in it, and
my mother was lining it with soft cow hair, moss, dry grass, and short
lengths of soft, white string. Our Mary never gave her birds long bits
of anything, for they would have caught on their claws and tripped
them up.
We young ones watched her jealously. We had cried bitterly when we
were put out of the nest. Our mother did not beat us, but our father
did.
“Don’t you understand, babies,” she said, as she turned herself round
and round in the nest to shape it with her breast, “that I must get
ready for this second family? I could not have you hanging about your
old home. You would step on the nestlings. You must go out in the room
and get acquainted with some of the young birds, for a year hence you
will be choosing mates of your own.”
“I don’t want to go out in the room, mother,” I chirped bitterly. “I
want to stay with you. Green-Top is so ugly to me and sets my cousins
on to tease me. They crowd me at night on the perch, they make me wait
at the food dishes till they have eaten. I want to live with you. You
are so pretty and so good and comfortable.”
“Darling, darling,” she twittered in her lovely soft tones. “Come at
night and perch near me. Wait till your father puts his head under his
wing.”
This was very soothing, and at least I had happy nights, although my
days were always more or less worried. Parents don’t know what a lot
of trouble their young ones have when they first leave the home nest.
To come back to our singing lesson. My father was terribly strict with
us, and we just hated it, though our mother told us to get all we
could out of him, for as soon as the new nestlings came he would not
pay much attention to us.
“Then what will you do,” she said, “for a canary that can not sing is
a no-account canary?”
“I wish I were a hen-bird like Cayenna,” I said sulkily. “She never
has to sing.”
“Hen birds never sing,” said my mother. “Cayenna’s beauty and the
exquisite coloring that she will have later on, for I shall make her
eat plenty of pepper food, will carry her through life. You are a very
plain little bird, my darling. Your voice will be your only charm.
Promise me, promise me, that you will mind what your daddy says.”
“I’ll try, mother,” I used to say every time she talked to me, but at
nearly every lesson, when my father lost his temper, I forgot what I
had promised her, and lost mine too. This day I was particularly
sulky, and it wasn’t long before I was getting a good pecking from my
father Norfolk.
“I never heard such harsh and broken tones,” he said angrily. “Listen
to Green-Top, how he holds his song like an endless strain.”
I tried again, but unfortunately I caught my uncle Silver-Throat’s
eye, and broke down and gurgled and laughed in my father’s beak.
Didn’t I catch it! He and Green-Top both fell on me, and to save my
feathers I flew straight to the most sheltered fir tree in the room,
where Uncle Silver-Throat sat hunched up all day long, holding against
the wall that part of his body which had once been a lovely tail.
He is a little Hartz Mountain canary, with a fluffy, mottled breast,
and he has the most wonderful voice in the room.
He was laughing now. “Come here, poor little birdie,” he said. “There
is no use trying to learn from your father; he is too impatient. He
can’t sing, anyway. He is an English bird, and all his race are bred
for form and appearance. My race is for song. It doesn’t matter how we
look. Can he teach you the water-bubble, deep roll, bell, flute,
warble, whistle, and the numberless trills I can? Does his voice have
a range of four octaves?”
“No, indeed,” I said, “but he is my father, and I would like to learn
from him.”
“That’s right,” he said heartily. “I really think you should control
yourself a little more. Well, we’ll leave it this way. Go back to your
father, when he becomes calm, and learn all you can from him, but come
to me for extra lessons. I’ll teach you to sing much better than that
scamp Green-Top does, for your voice is sweeter than his. He is a very
disrespectful, saucy young bird. It is he that puts your father up to
abusing you, I believe.”
“Uncle,” I said timidly, “two days ago you had a fine tail. Now you
have none. Why is it?”
He smiled. “I am quite a deep thinker, birdie, and yesterday as I sat
dreaming on this branch, I failed to notice that new, golden spangled
Lizard canary who has lately come to the bird-room. She was acting
queerly about the five eggs she has just laid. Finally I did remark
that she was breaking and eating them. It seems she had a poor home
before she came here, where she was fed stale seeds. So Avis, being
scantily fed and having no dainties given her, used to eat a nice
fresh egg whenever she could get it. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘they
are her own eggs. She has a right to eat them if she chooses,’ so I
didn’t interfere.
“Her mate Spotty came along after a while and fell into a rage. He
asked if any bird had seen her at this mischief, and I said I had.
“He asked why I hadn’t stopped her, and I said it was none of my
business.
“He said it was, that all the birds in the room, even the parakeets
and the love-birds who are pretty selfish, had made up their minds to
stop this business of egg-breaking; then they all fell on me and
picked out my tail feathers to remind me to interfere when I saw
another bird doing anything wrong.”
“Do you feel badly about it, uncle?” I asked.
“My tail is pretty sore, but my mind is tranquil. I did wrong, but I
have been punished for it, and my feathers will grow. Why worry about
it? I am sorry for Spotty. He expected to have a nice lot of young
ones in thirteen days, and now he will have to wait for weeks.”
“Why would Avis eat her eggs, when she has plenty of lime and crushed
egg shell and all sorts of food here?” I asked.
“Habit, my birdie. She had the naughty trick and could not get over
it. If I had only shrieked at her, it would have frightened her and
kept her from murdering all her future nestlings, as Spotty says. But
there is your cayenne pepper food coming. Go and eat some, so that
your feathers will be reddish gold. It is a good throat tonic, too.”
Our Mary was just coming in with a saucer of mixed egg food, grated
sweet bread, granulated sugar and cayenne pepper sprinkled on the top
of it. She also had a deep dish of something purple.
“Blueberries, birds,” she said, as she put it down. “Nice canned
blueberries, almost as fresh as if they had just come off the bushes.”
Nearly every bird in the room uttered a satisfied note, then they all
flew to her feet where she set the dishes.
I was not hungry, and ate little. When she opened the door a few
minutes later to go out, I flew to her and lighted on her arm.
My father was taking a nap, and I knew by the wicked look in
Green-Top’s eye that he would begin bullying me as soon as she left
the room.
“Take me out,” I chirped, “take me out,” for I knew that she often
took good steady little birds out into her own part of the house.
She understood me. “But, Dicky-Dick,” she said, “you are so young. I
fear you might fly away.”
“I’ll be good. I’ll be good,” I sang in my unsteady young voice, and,
relenting, she put out a finger, urged me gently to her shoulder where
she usually carried her birds, that being the safest foothold, and
walked out into the hall.
My mother saw me going and called out a warning. “Be careful, Dicky-Dick.
You will see strange sights. Don’t lose your head. Keep close to our
Mary.”
“I’ll be careful, careful,” I called back, but my heart was going
pit-a-pat when the bird-room door closed behind me, and I went out
into the strange new world of the hall.