My Pets
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Like my games, my stockings, and my frocks, they were home-made. We had
no caged birds. Our yards and woods thrilled with bird-song all day long
for eight months of the year, and mocking-birds filled June and July
nights with music sweeter and more varied than the storied strain of the
nightingale. I had never seen a canary, and knew nothing of him except
as I had read of one in what I called a "pair of verses" to which I took
a fancy. I used to sing them to a tune of my own making when
grown-uppers were not listening:--
"Mary had a little bird,
Feathers bright and yellow,
Slender legs--upon my word
He was a pretty fellow.
"Sweetest songs he often sung
Which much delighted Mary,
And often where his cage was hung
She stood to hear Canary."
I classed Mary 'Liza with the grown-uppers. She loved cats, adopting two
when they were blind kittens, and bringing them up in just such staid
habits as made her incomparable among children. At six months of age
they would doze at her feet on the rug while she studied, or ciphered,
or read aloud, or stitched upon those everlasting chemises. When she
took a walk for exercise (she never ran, or hopped, or skipped) they
trotted demurely in the path, beside or behind her, indifferent to
butterflies and grasshoppers, and as intent upon Behavior as their
mistress. They were always fat and sleek, and ate civilized
victuals,--bread, milk, and cooked meats cut into decent, miminy-piminy
mouthfuls. Not one of them was ever known to commit the vulgarity of
catching a mouse. Mary 'Liza considered it cruel, and eating raw flesh
"a dirty habit." She, the cats, and Dorinda composed a Happy Family in
which--barring the Rozillah episode--no accidents ever happened.
From earliest childhood my love for living creatures as companions and
pets was a passion that wrought much anguish to me, and more casualties
in the dumb animal kingdom than would be credited, were I to set down
the full tale of my bantlings, and the fate of each. At a tender age, I
sturdily refused to "call mine" the downiest darlings of the
poultry-yard. There would be a few weeks of having, and loving, and
fattening, and then the axe and the bloody log at the woodpile, and the
stormy tears of bereavement. It mattered not to Aunt 'Ritta that my
foster-children had names to which they answered, that they would feed
from my hand, and hop on my shoulder, and run quacking, or squawking,
or piping, or chirping, at my heels across the yard, and follow me to
the field like dogs. When the day and the hour--always unexpected to
me--came, I "called and they answered not again," until, taught by
bitter experience, I "struck" petting tame and edible living things,
once and finally.
The miniature menagerie I then set up on my own account, and, as I shall
show, to the detriment of everything entered upon the rolls, was stocked
principally by the services of my colored contingent.
Among the first inmates--they all became patients in the long, or short
run--were two striped ground squirrels (chipmunks) who were caught in a
box with a falling door, and presented to me by Barratier. He lent me
the box to keep them in. I fed and watered them warily and successfully
for a couple of days by lifting the door an inch, having previously
rapped upon it to scare the prisoners to the other end, then slipping in
the dish of water and the nuts, sugar, or fruit that were the day's
rations. Supposing that kindness and comfortable quarters had tamed them
into appreciation of my services and intentions, I raised the door two
inches higher on the third day, and took a good look at the beauties
huddled trembling in their safe corner. Their bright eyes were alluring,
their quiescence was encouraging. I spoke to them in dulcet accents, and
advanced a friendly hand. They met it more than half-way, one leaping
upon my bare arm, running up to my shoulder, and, with one bound over my
head, regaining his lost freedom. I caught his less active brother by
the tail as he was sneaking under the door, and held him tight. In a
quarter-jiffy he whisked his little body around and dug his teeth into
my finger, and, as I still held on to his tail, incontinently shed the
skin of the same, leaving it in my grasp. The last I ever saw of him was
the flaunt of a gory, ghastly pennant, as the bearer vanished under a
heap of stones. I flung the bloody casing from me with abhorrence. Now I
can hope that another grew upon the denuded bones. Then I hoped it
would not. The insult was gross.
The immediate successor of the ingrates was a mouse bestowed upon me by
one of the stable hands. I named the waif "Caspar Hauser" forthwith,
being fresh from the perusal of the history of that engaging fraud, and
inducted him into a spare rat-trap set about closely with wires. A
horsehair sparrow's nest was lined with raw cotton and put in one
corner, a toy saucer of water in the other, and in the third a toy plate
filled with cracked hickory nuts, interspersed with bits of sugar. Then
I sat down upon the floor beside him, and began the business of taming
him by getting him used to seeing me, cultivating his acquaintance by
poking my finger between the bars, talking and singing to him, and
endeavoring, by other ingenious devices, to make him feel at home. He
scampered around the confines of his domicile, as in a treadmill, all
the time I was thus employed, and could not be induced to touch his
food.
Mary 'Liza and I had outgrown the trundle-bed, and had a room to
ourselves upstairs. Into this I surreptitiously conveyed the improvised
cage that night and hid it under the bed. When my bedfellow had fallen
asleep, I got up softly, lighted a candle, and took a peep at my pet. He
had gone regularly to bed after disposing of some of the nuts and
scattering the remnants in every direction, and now lay curled up in the
cotton-wool in the prettiest, most homelike way imaginable, fast asleep.
I hung over him, entranced. He was tamed! Before long he would be
following me all over the house, playing hide-and-seek in corners,
sitting upon his hind legs beside my plate at table, and nibbling such
tidbits as I might give him. One particularly bright picture of our
common future was of taking him to church, smuggling him into the pocket
of my Sunday frock, and after settling myself comfortably upon my knees
before a corner seat during the "long prayer," taking Caspar Hauser out
and letting him play on the bench. What a boon his society would
be--what a relief his antics while Mr. Lee droned through innumerable
"We pray Thees!"
After I went back to bed I pursued these and other enchanting visions
into dreamland. The next day I took Caspar Hauser into the garden for
air and sunshine. His liveliness was something inconceivable by the
human imagination. He chased himself frantically around the cage,
regardless of my tender exhortations, until I began to fear that taming
was a more tedious process than I had supposed. I set the cage upon the
grass where the sun was hottest, withdrawing myself into the shade as
less in need of light and warmth, and read a volume of Berquin's
_Children's Friend_ in full sight of Caspar Hauser. Whenever I turned a
page I would stick my finger between the wires and chirrup encouragingly
to the captive, all with a single eye to getting him used to me. His
speed and staying powers were equally extraordinary, but I was cheered,
when the forenoon was spent and I picked up the cage to take him in, by
observing that he ran more deliberately and with occasional pauses. By
the time I got him upstairs he lay down for a nap. He was still
slumbering at my supper-time, and had not got his nap out when I went to
bed, nor yet when breakfast was eaten and lessons said, next morning.
I had made up my mind by now that he was sick, and carried him into the
garden once more. I had read that wild creatures physic themselves if
allowed to seek such plants as instinct tells them are specifics for
their ailments. Lifting Caspar Hauser from his woolly bed, I stroked him
and called him by name. He was so tame by now that he did not struggle
upon my palm. Only the rise and fall of his furry sides showed that he
was alive. He was limp and helpless, and to me very lovable. I laid him
upon a strip of turf hot with the sunshine that had steeped it for five
hours. He had a liberal choice of healing herbs. Parsley, sage, mint,
tansy, peppergrass, catnip, and sweet marjoram, rue and bergamot and
balsam, flourished within a hundred lengths of his small body. While I
watched him he stretched himself as a baby at awakening, and began to
crawl weakly toward the tansy bed. To save him needless exertion I
pulled a handful of the yellow heads and offered them to his inquisitive
nose. Mam' Chloe had given me tansy tea for a bad cold last winter. It
tasted nasty, but I got well. Instinct had "indicated" tansy to Caspar
Hauser. He refused the panacea dumbly, and made, still feebly, for the
parsley patch. I let him go a yard or more, when, fearing lest he might
lose himself in the maze of luxuriant herbage, I dragged him tenderly
back by the tail to the hot turf.
He had grown so tame that he never moved again.
The funeral took place that afternoon. We buried him next to Musidora. I
had had enough of vaults, regarding them, with reason, as uncertain
places of sepulture for the presumably defunct. I had never heard, or
read, of cremation. I had had the misfortune to break my slate a few
days before, and the biggest fragment made a nice tombstone for Caspar
Hauser. With a nail and with infinite toil I produced a suitable
epitaph.
HERE LIES
HIS AFLICTED
MISS M. BURWELL'S
FATHEFULL LIT
TLE FREND AN
D TAME PLA
YFELOW AND
SUFFERER
C. H.
There was not room for the whole name, but, as I told my fellow-mourners
when I read the inscription to them, since we all knew it, the omission
was of no consequence. I could have wished that the slate had broken
straight, so that the inscription would have gone in better. However,
one cannot control circumstance when it takes the shape of a fracture.
Within twenty-four hours after Caspar Hauser's decease he was succeeded
by Bay. His name in its entirety, was Baffin's Bay. The alliterative
unctuousness of the title pleased me, as Mary 'Liza pronounced it
smoothly in her geography lesson, the day on which Hamilcar, the
carriage driver, drove over a young "old hare" in the road, and knocked
one of the poor thing's eyes out. It was taken up for dead, but
presently began to kick, and the ownership reverted to me. It lived a
week, and for hours at a time was so nearly comfortable as to eat
sparingly of milk, lettuce, cabbage, and clover, with which I supplied
it lavishly twice a day. I likewise treated the wounded eye with
balsam-capeiva and balm of Gilead ointment, sovereign appliances for the
bruises and cut fingers of that generation. A lemon box, with slats
nailed across the front by faithful Barratier, was the hospital in which
I laid Bay up for repairs. Him, too, I carried daily into the garden,
for change of air. He condescended to approve of the parsley patch,
limping through it as gracefully as the long tape tied to his right hind
leg would allow.
When, upon the third day of his residence in civilized quarters, he had
a convulsion in the very middle of the parsley patch, I thought it a
playful antic, and was amused and gratified thereat. The second time
this happened, James, the gardener, chanced to witness the performance
and informed me, brutally, that "that old hyar had throwed a fit, and
was boun' to die 'fore long.
"That 'ar lick on de side o' de hade done de bizness fur him, sure. De
brain am injerred. Mighty easy thing fur to injer a Molly Cottontail's
brain. He ain't got much, an' hit lies close to de top o' de hade."
For forty-eight hours before Bay died, the spasms were distressingly
frequent, but I would not have him killed. James might be wrong. Good
nursing and plenty of fresh air might bring my patient around. For fear
my parents might insist that he should be put out of his misery, I
removed the hospital to the playhouse, and gave him the range of the
place, forbidding the colored children to tell what was going on. His
agonies were nearly over when, in the distraction of anxiety, I took
Cousin Frank Morton into confidence. He had ridden over with a message
from Cousin Molly Belle.
(Have I mentioned that they had been married for six months?)
The message was to the effect that I must spend the day and night with
her. My mother gave ready consent.
"Molly has been too pale for several days, and has little or no
appetite," she said, looking affectionately at me. "The change will do
her good, and there is no other place where she enjoys a visit more than
at your house. Molly! can't you thank Cousin Frank for taking the
trouble to come for you?"
Strained by conflicting emotions, I fidgeted awkwardly about Cousin
Frank's chair, pinching the hem of my apron into folds, and shifting
from one foot to the other.
"I want to go _dreadfully_!" I got out at length, almost ready to cry.
"_But_--Cousin Frank--wouldn't you like to look at Bay? He's an old hare
that I am taming."
While speaking, I started for the door, and he came after me. My mother
exclaimed, provoked, yet laughing, that I was "getting more ridiculous
every day," but I knew my man, and did not stop.
Bay was throwing a particularly hard fit when we got to him. His cries
had something humanlike in them that pierced ears and heart.
"My dear child!" uttered the shocked visitor. "How long has this been
going on?"
Upon hearing that the poor thing had never seemed really well from the
day he was hurt, and had been "going on like this for four days,
hand-running," he was quite angry--for him.
"I wonder that your mother let you keep him when he was in this state,"
he said seriously; and, seeing the tears I could not drive back, he sat
down on my chair and drew me up to him. "It would be better to kill the
poor creature, at once, dear. He can never be better."
I begged him not to tell my mother about Bay's sickness. I had become
very fond of him, and he was so sweet and patient--and tame,--and I just
couldn't bear to have him killed. Whether he would have granted my
petition or not was not to be tested. While I was speaking, Bay uttered
a shrill scream, leaped up high in the air, and fell over on his back,
dead.
We hurried on the funeral that I might go home with Cousin Frank that
evening. I pulled up the tombstone from the head of Caspar Hauser's
grave and made an epitaph on the other side for Bay. There might not be
another slate broken in the family for months. At the present rate of
mortality among my pensioners, it behooved me to be economical. I had
not time to indite such an elaborate testimonial to the worth of the
deceased as graced Caspar Hauser's last resting-place. Yet I thought
the tribute not amiss, and the drop into poetry elated me and
electrified my audience. The lines were engraved perpendicularly upon
the slate to give the rhyme effective room:--
"Alas! and Alack A DAY!
Poor Litle BAFFINS BAY!"
My visit lasted three days instead of one and a half. I brought back
with me something worthy of the pride that swelled my happy heart to
aching. One of Cousin Frank's men had taken two young hares alive, and
given them to his mistress a week ago, and she and Cousin Frank had
arranged a pleasant surprise for me. Before I had been in the house an
hour I was taken to the dining room to see the dear little things
already housed in a cage, made by the plantation carpenter. None of your
lemon-box makeshifts, but a strong case in the shape of a cottage, of
planed wood, painted white on the outside. There were two rooms in it
with a round door in the dividing wall. One was half full of soft,
sweet-smelling hay for Darby and Joan to sleep upon. Their names were
ready-made, too. The other room was a parlor where they were to eat and
to live in the daytime. Broad leather straps by which the box could be
carried were made to look like chimneys.
The whole family collected to admire my treasures when I got home, and
Mary 'Liza was so much interested in Darby and Joan that she brought up
her cats, Cinderella and Preciosa, to be introduced and make friends
with "their new cousins"--so she said. Cinderella was black-and-white,
Preciosa yellow-and-white, very large, and with long fur as soft and
fine as raw silk. Mary 'Liza put them down close to the cottage.
"You must be very good and never hurt either of the beautiful hares--you
hear?" she said, and we all looked on to see what they would do.
Bless your soul! they walked once around the cottage in a lazy,
indifferent, supercilious way, hardly glancing at their "new cousins,"
then Preciosa yawned, tiptoed back to her place on the rug, doubled her
toes in under her, and half closed her "greenery-yallery" eyes in real,
or simulated slumber. Cinderella purred about her mistress until she
seated herself again to work upon her seventh chemise, then jumped up
into her lap and composed herself to slumber.
After that, I had no fear that the well-fed, pampered creatures would
molest my pets. Everybody sympathized in my good fortune. The weather
was intensely warm, and Uncle Ike's own august hands rigged up a shelf
against the garden fence, making what I called a "situation" for my
cottage. Not even Argus could get at them there, had he been evilly
disposed, and he had excellent principles for a puppy. Darby and Joan
nibbled lettuce and cabbage from my fingers inside of three days, and if
they were in the bedroom when I approached their dwelling, would bustle
out to see if it were milk, or greens, or, maybe, clover blossoms that I
had for them.
The happy, happy days went by, and I announced to my father one evening
as we sat at supper that I really "began to believe the curse was lifted
from my pets."
"The curse! Mary Hobson Burwell! what a word!" cried my mother.
My father held up his hand.
"One moment, if you please, mother! Explain yourself, Molly!"
"I mean," answered I, bravely, "that it used to seem as if a wicked
fairy had cursed a curse upon anything I took a fancy to. Like the girl
in the song, and her tree and flower, and dear gazelle, you know. But
Darby and Joan make me hope--"
The words were blasted upon my tongue by a terrible scream.
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