when the noise began. At first he only stirred sleepily, and wondered,
half awake, at the unusual sounds; but as they increased, curiosity
began to trouble him. Party after party in launches or bright-hued
gondolas glided past, all gay and chattering, and full of excitement
about something, he did not know what. It was the first night on which
the buildings and grounds of the Chicago Fair were illuminated, and the
flamingo could not tell what to make of it, any more than could the
herons and swans, the Muscovy ducks, the cranes, or any other of the
winged creatures which had learned to make themselves at home on the
banks of the lagoons.
The pink flamingo's name was Coco. He had been "raised" on the shore of
the St. Johns River, in Florida, as the pet and _protege_ of Cecil
Schott, a boy who had taught him many tricks,--to catch fish and fetch
them out in his mouth, as a retriever fetches a bird, to eat caramels,
to dive after objects thrown into the water and bring them up in his
beak:--after Cecil himself even, so long as he was small enough to be
counted as an "object." Often and often had Coco plunged into the deep
river, following the downward sweep of his little master, and seized him
by the arm or foot before he was anywhere near the bottom. He would eat
from Cecil's hand, also, and stand by his side, folding one wide wing
across the boy's shoulder, as though it were an arm. Cecil was growing
up now, and had been sent to school; so when Mr. Schott heard that the
Chicago directors were making a collection of birds for the Fair
Grounds, he offered Coco, whose fearlessness and familiarity with human
beings seemed peculiarly to adapt him for a public position.
When the fifth electrical launch had sped past the sedges, and strange,
hovering lights began to burn in the sky, and ring the domes and roofs
in the distance toward the south, Coco could endure it no longer, and,
betaking himself to the water, started on a tour of investigation. He
looked very big in the dim light of the upper waterways,--almost as big
as the smaller of the gondolas. The people in the boats exclaimed with
astonishment as he passed them, his broad wings raised above him, like
rose-colored sails, and his stout legs beating the water into foam
behind, like a propeller.
At first his course lay amid soft shadows. The upper part of the Fair
Grounds was not illuminated, and only a bird's keen vision could have
made out accustomed objects. But the flamingo had no difficulty in
seeing. He knew exactly where to look for the nest of the female swan on
the wooded island. He could even make out her dim white shape in the
gloom, and hear the disturbed flutter of her wings. There was the
plantation of white hyacinths, and there the outline of the shabby old
"Prairie Schooner," into which he had more than once poked his
inquisitive head. There stood the "Log Cabin," and beyond, the twinkling
lanterns of the Japanese Tea Garden. The pink flamingo recognized them
all. Under one graceful bridge after another, past one enormous
beautiful building after another, he swept, following the curves and
turnings of the waterways, startled here and there by unaccustomed
lights and the sounds of a hurrying crowd, till at last, with one bold
sweep, he glided under the last arch and out into the broad basin of the
Court of Honor.
He had been there before. Catch the pink flamingo leaving any part of
the Fair Grounds unexplored! He was not that sort of bird. He had even
been there in the evening, when the moon shone clearly on the water,
with only a point of light here and there on the surrounding shores, and
no sounds to break the stillness but the plash of waves washing in from
the lake, and the low talk of little groups of late-stayers, sitting on
the steps before the Liberal Arts Building, looking across to the
fountain and the dim row of sculptured forms on the summit of the
Peristyle. But now all was different. The gilded dome of the
Administration Building was ringed with lines of fire. The facade of the
Agricultural blazed with lights, which shone on the bas-reliefs and
sculptures, on the winged Diana above, and the great bulls which guard
the approach to the boat-landing. Every figure which topped the long
double lines of the Peristyle stood out distinctly against the
transparent sky; the gilding of the broad arch toward the lake glowed
ruddy in the light, and so did the majestic figure of the Republic, its
noble outline reflected in the shimmering waters beneath. The great
fountain opposite caught the blaze, and sent its smooth shoots over the
basin edges with a white phosphorescent radiance. Then a wide beam from
a search-light swept across, and seemed to turn the figures into life;
made the form of the Discoverer and the beautiful figures of the rowing
women on either side, throb and pulsate, fluctuating with the
fluctuating ray, till they seemed to bend and move. On either side, the
electrical fountains lifted high in air great sheaves of iridescent
colors, scarlet, green, and blue, like a flag of upheaving jewels, while
the faces of the immense throng along the esplanades and on the dome of
the Administration Building changed from gloom to glory and back again
to gloom as the dancing ray wandered to and fro.
It was a scene from fairyland; but it did not altogether please Coco,
who, startled and affrighted, made a dive, and disappeared under water
by way of a relief to his feelings. Then he came up again, and, growing
by degrees accustomed to these novel splendors, he recovered confidence,
and began to look about him.
"Oh, what a beautiful bird!" he heard some one say; and though he did
not understand the words, he knew well enough that he was being admired,
and thereupon proceeded to make himself a part of the show. He splashed,
dived, extended his wide wings, curved his long neck, and generally
exhibited himself to the best of his ability, all the time maintaining
an absent-minded air, as if he were not aware that any one else was
present. Coco was very conceited for a bird.
Meanwhile, at about the same moment in which the pink flamingo was
roused from his slumbers, a small Turkish boy named Hassan awoke from
his, in the retirement of the Midway Plaisance. He had not been at all
a good little Turk since he came to America, his parents thought.
Something in the air of freedom had apparently demoralized him. It might
be that domestic discipline had been relaxed since their arrival, for
there had been much to do in getting the Turkish Bazaar and the Mosque
and the Village ready; but certain it is that Hassan had been naughtier
and given more trouble during the past ten weeks than in all the
previous years of his short life. Once, in a great rain-storm, he had
actually run away, slipping past the guard at the gate, and tearing
wildly down the street. Where he was going, he did not know or care; all
he wanted was to run. How far he might have gone, or what would have
become of him in the end, no one can say, had his father not caught a
glimpse of the small fleeting figure.
"Beard of the Prophet!" ejaculated the scandalized Mustapha. "That son
of Sheitan, the enemy of true believers, will be run over by the horses
of the infidel if I do not overtake him speedily."
He tucked up his blue robe, which almost touched the muddy ground, it
was so long, revealing, as he did so, yellow boots topped with American
socks, and, above these, a pair of green drawers, and started in
pursuit. Alas! the guard at the turnstile stopped him, and demanded his
pass. In vain Mustapha remonstrated, and explained, in fluent Turkish,
that his sole object was to capture his evil child, who had escaped from
home. The guard did not understand the language of Turkey, and
persisted, explaining, in the tongue of Chicago, that he was acting
under orders, and that no "foreigner" could go in or out without proper
authority.
"Permit! Permit! Pass! Pass! You must show your pass!" cried the guard.
"_Backsheesh_, you know."
It was his sole Turkish word. He had learned it since the Fair opened
from hearing it so often.
"You bet!" responded Mustapha. It was his sole English word. "The
Prophet visit you with a murrain and total baldness!" he continued, in
his own vernacular. Then, seeing that Hassan, who was having a most
enjoyable time, was nearing a corner and about to disappear, he uttered
a wild shout of despair, and, thrusting the guard aside, darted through
the gate and after the child. His long petticoat waggled in the wind,
and blew behind him like a wet umbrella broken loose. The guard was so
convulsed with laughter that he could only stand still and hold his
sides. Two chairmen, who had trundled two ladies down the Plaisance to
the gate, were as much convulsed as he. Little Hassan ran for all he was
worth. His gown of drab cotton, as long, in proportion, as his father's,
switched and fluttered as he flew along. But longer legs always have
the advantage over shorter ones in a race. The pursuer gained on the
pursued. When Hassan saw that there was no hope, and he was bound to be
overtaken, he just flung himself down in a mud-puddle and kicked and
screamed. His exasperated parent pulled him up, and, with a shake, set
him on his feet. Hassan made his legs limp, and refused to walk; so
Mustapha tucked him under his arm, and strode back toward the Plaisance.
The guard was still too doubled up with laughter for speech, so he let
him pass unscolded. Once safely inside, Mustapha shifted his wet and
dirty little burden on to its feet, whirled aside the drab skirt, and,
with trenchant slaps, administered a brief but effectual American
spanking. He then conducted Hassan to his veiled mother in her
retirement, and intimated his pleasure that he should be made to undergo
a further penance.
It was this same naughty little Turk who woke up at the same time with
the pink flamingo. He heard music and shouts, and saw the same strange
glow toward the southward which had startled the bird from its rest. His
father and mother had joined the motley throng of foreign folk of all
nationalities, garbs, and shades of complexion,--Arabs, Javanese,
Alaskans, Eskimos, South Sea Islanders, Cossacks, American Indians, and
East Indians, Chinese, and Dahomyans,--who had flocked out of the
Plaisance to see the spectacle. No one was left behind but the sleeping
children, and here was Hassan, no longer asleep, but very wide awake
indeed.
[Illustration: Down the esplanade sped the little figure.--PAGE 191.]
No time did he lose in hesitation; he knew in a moment what he wanted to
do. His queer little clothes were close at hand,--the drab gown, still
mud-stained from his run, the yellow slippers, the small fez for his
head. Into them he skipped, and, stepping out of the door, he ran down
the Plaisance, keeping on the shaded side as far as might be, for fear
of being stopped. He need not have been afraid; there was no one to stop
him. The great Woman's Building came in sight, with the outlines of the
still larger Horticultural beyond. Down the esplanade sped the little
figure. The light grew more brilliant with every turn; more and more
people passed him, but all were pressing southward. And in a crowd like
this, nobody had time to notice the advent of such a very small Turk
among them. Hot and breathless after his long run, Hassan at last
emerged, as the pink flamingo had done, on the Court of Honor.
Here his smallness proved an advantage to him, for he could crowd
himself into minute spaces in the living mass where a grown person could
not go, squeeze between people's legs, and wriggle and twist, all the
time pressing steadily forward, till at last he gained the parapet, and,
climbing up, seated himself comfortably on the top. Then his eyes and
mouth opened simultaneously into an "Ahi!" of wonder, for close before
him was one of the electrical fountains, shooting blue and crimson
fires, and a little beyond shone the pulsating radiance of the dazzling
forms grouped above the Discoverer, the rearing horses, the winged shape
in the bow of the boat. Never before had anything so wonderful been seen
by our little Turk. The great basin twinkled with reflected lights, like
a starry sky set upside down; overhead the statues glittered; a round
silver moon hung above, and broad rays, like her own beams intensified
and set into motion, wandered to and fro from the search-light opposite,
darting now on a splendid facade, now on a towering dome, again on a
bridge packed with people, whose expectant faces were all turned
skyward, and, finally, on a great pink bird which was wheeling and
turning in the water.
There was a sudden small splash.
"Oh, oh!" shrieked a child's voice, in tones of distress, "my dolly's
fallen in! Mamma, Mamma, that was my dolly that fell in. She'll be all
drowned! Oh, my dolly!" Then the voice changed to one of amazement and
joy: "Oh, Mamma, see that bird! He has got her!"
Coco had spied the doll as it fell, and, true to his early training,
dived after it as a matter of course, and came up with the doll in his
bill.
"Oh, you good birdie! you dear birdie!" cried the little one, stretching
her arms over the parapet. "Let me have Dolly again, please, dear
birdie!"
Coco understood only Flamingo, and had no idea what the little girl was
saying; but as a nibble or two had showed that the doll was not edible,
he made no resistance when a gentleman reached over from the edge of a
gondola and took it from his beak. It was handed back to its little
owner amid a great clapping and laughing, and Coco was given an Albert
biscuit instead, which he liked much better, and speedily disposed of.
He knew that the applause was meant for him, and, puffed up with pride,
sailed vain-gloriously to and fro, waiting another chance to distinguish
himself.
It came! There was another and much louder splash as a small red-capped
figure toppled over into the water. It was Hassan, who, leaning over to
watch the wonderful bird, had lost his balance.
No one laughed this time, and there was a general cry of "Oh, it was a
child! A child has fallen in! Save him, some one!" People shouted for
"a boat;" men pulled off their coats, making ready for a plunge; women
began to cry; then, all at once, there was a general exclamation of
astonishment and admiration.
"The bird has got him" cried a hundred voices.
It was again Coco! To dive after Hassan, to seize the drab skirt in his
beak, and bring the child again to the surface of the water, was an easy
feat to him; but to the excited multitudes upon the banks it seemed
well-nigh a miracle.
"Never saw such a thing in my life!" declared a man on the bridge.
"Don't tell me that bird hasn't an intellect. No, sir! There ain't a man
here could have done that better, nor so well as that there pelican. He
is smart enough to vote, he is!"
"Too smart," remarked his next neighbor. "He'd never stick to the
regular ticket; he'd have a mind of his own. That ain't the sort we want
over here. We want voters that don't have independent ideas, but just do
as the boss tells 'em."
"That's pretty true, I reckon," replied the first man.
Meanwhile, Hassan was safe on shore. It had been for only one moment
that the flamingo had needed to support his burden; then it was lifted
from him by a man in a boat, who took time to tell him that he was a
"first-rate fellow, a famous fellow, and ought to have a medal from the
Humane Society."
"He _shall_ have one!" declared an enthusiastic lady in the crowd. "I
will see to it myself." And the next morning she bought a souvenir
half-dollar, had "For a Brave Bird" engraved upon it, and a hole bored
in its rim, through which she ran a pink ribbon. This she carried over
to the Wooded Island, and, with the assistance of two Columbian guards,
captured Coco, and tied the ribbon firmly round his neck. He resisted
strenuously, and spent much time in trying to peck the decoration off;
but as time went on, and he became accustomed to it, and found that
wherever he went it made him conspicuous, and that the other birds
envied him the notice he attracted, he rather learned to like his
"medal;" and he wore it to the very end of the Columbian Exposition.
Meanwhile, as Fate willed it, the dripping Hassan was handed ashore
precisely at that point of the esplanade where stood his father and
mother! They had not seen the accident, nor understood that it was a boy
who had fallen in and been rescued by a bird; so when a wet little
object was set to drip almost at their feet, and they recognized in it
their own offspring, whom they supposed to be safely asleep at home, it
will be easily imagined that their wrath and astonishment knew no
bounds.
"Ahi! child of sin, contaminated by the unbeliever, is it indeed thou?"
cried the irate Mustapha. "What djinnee, what imp of Eblis hath brought
thee here?"
"He hath been in the water, Allah preserve us!" cried the more
tender-hearted mother. "He might have been drowned."
"In the water! Nay, then; wherefore is he not in bed where we left him?
We will see if this imp of evil be not taught to avoid the water in the
future. On my head be it if he is not, Inshallah!"
So the weeping Hassan was led home by his family, his garments leaving a
trail of drip on the concrete all the way up the long distance; and in
the seclusion of the temporary harem he was caused to see the error of
his way.
"Thou shalt be made to remember," declared his irate parent in the
pauses of discipline. "I will not have thee as the sons of these
infidels who despise correction, saying 'I will' and 'I will not,' and
are as a blemish and a darkening to the faces of their parents. The
Prophet rebuke me if I do! Inshallah!"
But Coco, when the lights were put out and the great crowd streamed
away, leaving the Fair Grounds to silence and loneliness, and the
lagoons became again a soft land of shadows broken by reaches of
moonlight, sailed back to his perch among the sedges with a calm and
satisfied mind. He had a right to be pleased with himself. Had he not
saved two "people," one very small and hard, and the other very big and
soft? Nothing whispered of that dreadful half-dollar which was coming on
the morrow to vex his spirit. No one said to _him_ "Inshallah." He
tucked his head under his wing and went to sleep, a peaceful and
contented flamingo; and the moral is, "Be virtuous and you will be
happy."
TWO PAIRS OF EYES.
Did it ever occur to you what a difference there is in the way in which
people use their eyes? I do not mean that some people squint, and some
do not; that some have short sight, and some long sight. These are
accidental differences; and the people who cannot see far, sometimes see
more, and more truly, than do other people whose vision is as keen as
the eagle's. No, the difference between people's eyes lies in the power
and the habit of observation.
Did you ever hear of the famous conjurer Robert Houdin, whose wonderful
tricks and feats of magic were the astonishment of Europe a few years
ago? He tells us, in his autobiography, that to see everything at a
glance, while seeming to see nothing, is the first requisite in the
education of a "magician," and that the faculty of noticing rapidly and
exactly can be trained like any other faculty. When he was fitting his
little son to follow the same profession, he used to take him past a
shop-window, at a quick walk, and then ask him how many objects in the
window he could remember and describe. At first, the child could only
recollect three or four; but gradually he rose to ten, twelve, twenty,
and, in the end, his eyes would note, and his memory retain, not less
than forty articles, all caught in the few seconds which it took to pass
the window at a rapid walk.
It is so more or less with us all. Few things are more surprising than
the distinct picture which one mind will bring away from a place, and
the vague and blurred one which another mind will bring. Observation is
one of the valuable faculties, and the lack of it a fault which people
have to pay for, in various ways, all their lives.
There were once two peasant boys in France, whose names were Jean and
Louis Cardilliac. They were cousins; their mothers were both widows, and
they lived close to each other in a little village, near a great forest.
They also looked much alike. Both had dark, closely shaven hair, olive
skins, and large, black eyes; but in spite of all their resemblances,
Jean was always spoken of as "lucky," and Louis as "unlucky," for
reasons which you will shortly see.
If the two boys were out together, in the forest or the fields, they
walked along quite differently. Louis dawdled in a sort of loose-jointed
trot, with his eyes fixed on whatever happened to be in his hand,--a
sling, perhaps, or a stick, or one of those snappers with which birds
are scared away from fruit. If it were the stick, he cracked it as he
went, or he snapped the snapper, and he whistled, as he did so, in an
absent-minded way. Jean's black eyes, on the contrary, were always on
the alert, and making discoveries. While Louis stared and puckered his
lips up over the snapper or the sling, Jean would note, unconsciously
but truly, the form of the clouds, the look of the sky in the rainy
west, the wedge-shaped procession of the ducks through the air, and the
way in which they used their wings, the bird-calls in the hedge. He was
quick to mark a strange leaf, or an unaccustomed fungus by the path, or
any small article which had been dropped by the way. Once, he picked up
a five-franc piece; once, a silver pencil-case which belonged to the
_cure_, who was glad to get it again, and gave Jean ten sous by way of
reward. Louis would have liked ten sous very much, but somehow he never
found any pencil-cases; and it seemed hard and unjust when his mother
upbraided him for the fact, which, to his thinking, was rather his
misfortune than his fault.
"How can I help it?" he asked. "The saints are kind to Jean, and they
are not kind to me,--_voila tout_!"
"The saints help those who help themselves," retorted his mother. "Thou
art a look-in-the-air. Jean keeps his eyes open, he has wit, and he
notices."
But such reproaches did not help Louis, or teach him anything. Habit is
so strong.
"There!" cried his mother one day, when he came in to supper. "Thy
cousin--thy lucky cousin--has again been lucky. He has found a
truffle-bed, and thy aunt has sold the truffles to the man from Paris
for a hundred francs. A hundred francs! It will be long before thy
stupid fingers can earn the half of that!"
"Where did Jean find the bed?" asked Louis.
"In the oak copse near the brook, where thou mightest have found them
as easily as he," retorted his mother. "He was walking along with
Daudot, the wood cutter's dog--whose mother was a truffle-hunter--and
Daudot began to point and scratch; and Jean suspected something, got a
spade, dug, and crack! a hundred francs! Ah, _his_ mother is to be
envied!"
"The oak copse! Near the brook!" exclaimed Louis, too much excited to
note the reproach which concluded the sentence. "Why, I was there but
the other day with Daudot, and I remember now, he scratched and whined a
great deal, and tore at the ground. I didn't think anything about it at
the time."
"Oh, thou little imbecile--thou stupid!" cried his mother, angrily.
"There were the truffles, and the first chance was for thee. Didn't
think anything about it! Thou never dost think, thou never wilt. Out of
my sight, and do not let me see thee again till bedtime."
Supperless and disconsolate poor Louis slunk away. He called Daudot, and
went to the oak copse, resolved that if he saw any sign of excitement on
the part of the dog, to fetch a spade and instantly begin to dig. But
Daudot trotted along quietly, as if there were not a truffle left in
France, and the walk was fruitless.
"If I had only," became a favorite sentence with Louis, as time went on.
"If I had only noticed this." "If I had only stopped then." But such
phrases are apt to come into the mind after something has been missed by
not noticing or not stopping, so they do little good to anybody.
Did it ever occur to you that what people call "lucky chances," though
they seem to come suddenly, are in reality prepared for by a long
unconscious process of making ready on the part of those who profit by
them? Such a chance came at last to both Jean and Louis,--to Louis no
less than to Jean; but one was prepared for it, and the other was not.
Professor Sylvestre, a famous naturalist from Toulouse, came to the
forest village where the two boys lived, one summer. He wanted a boy to
guide him about the country, carry his plant-cases and herbals, and help
in his search after rare flowers and birds, and he asked Madame Collot,
the landlady of the inn, to recommend one. She named Jean and Louis;
they were both good boys, she said.
So the professor sent for them to come and talk with him.
"Do you know the forest well, and the paths?" he asked.
Yes, both of them knew the forest very well.