LIFE AND DEATH OF GOLDEN CLOUD.
There was one canary which they had christened Golden Cloud. It was
one of the two canaries that Dan had first trained; and for this and
other reasons Golden Cloud was a special favorite with the lads. Dan
used to declare that Golden Cloud literally understood every word he
spoke to it. And it really appeared as if Dan were right in so
declaring and so believing; it was certainly a fact that Golden Cloud
was a bird of superior intelligence. The other birds were of that
opinion, or they would not have accepted its leadership. When they
marched, Golden Cloud was at the head of them--and very proud it
appeared to be of its position; when the performances took place,
Golden Cloud was the first to commence; if any thing very responsible
and very particular were to be done, Golden Cloud was intrusted with
it; and if any new bird was refractory, it devolved upon Golden Cloud
to assist Dan to bring that bird to its senses. The birds did not
entertain a particle of envy towards Golden Cloud because it had
attained an eminence more distinguished than their own; and this fact
was as apparent, as it must have been astonishing, to any reflective
human being who enjoyed the happy privilege of being present now and
then at the performances of Dan's clever troupe. Even when old age
crept upon it--it was in the prime of life when Dan first took it in
hand--the same respect was paid to the sagamore of the company. Its
sight grew filmed, its legs grew scaly, its feathers grew ragged. What
matter? Had it not been kind and gentle to them when in its prime?
Should they not be kind and gentle to it now that Time was striking it
down? And was it not, even in its decrepitude, the wise bird of them
all?
Notwithstanding that it grew more and more shaky every hour almost,
the old sense of duty was strong in the heart of Golden Cloud; and it
strove to take part in the performances to the last. Golden Cloud had
evidently learned the lesson, that to try always to do one's duty is
the sweetest thing in life. In that respect it was wiser than many
human beings, who should have been wiser than it. It was a melancholy
sight, yet a comical one, withal, to see Golden Cloud lift a sword
with its beak, and try to hold it there, and hop with it at the head
of the company. It staggered here and there, and, being almost blind,
sometimes hit an inoffensive bird across the beak, which caused a
momentary confusion; but every thing was set right as quickly as could
be. The other birds bore with Golden Cloud's infirmities, and made its
labors light for it. Even the tomtit--that saucy, beautiful rascal,
with its crown of Cambridge blue, who had been the most refractory
bird that Golden Cloud ever had to deal with, who _would_ turn heels
over head in the midst of a serious lesson, and who _would_ hop and
twist about and agitate its staid companions with its restless
tricks--even the tomtit, whose greatest delight was to steal things
and break things, but whose spirit had been subdued and tamed by
Golden Cloud's firmness, assisted the veteran in its old age, and did
not make game of it.
One evening Joshua came round to Dan's room rather later than usual,
and found Dan in tears.
"What is the matter, Dan?" asked Joshua.
Dan did not reply.
"Do your legs hurt you, Dan?" asked Joshua tenderly.
Dan formed a "No" with his lips, but uttered no sound.
Joshua thought it best not to tease his friend with any more
questions. He saw that Dan was suffering from a grief which he would
presently unbosom. He took his accordion on his knee and began to play
very softly. As he played, a canary in a mourning-cloak came out of
the toy-house; another canary in a mourning-cloak followed; then a
bullfinch, and another bullfinch; then the tomtit and the linnets; and
then the blackbirds; all in little black cloaks which Ellen Taylor's
nimble fingers had made for them that day out of a piece of the lining
of an old frock. At the sight of the first canary, with its black
cloak on, Joshua was filled with astonishment; but when bird after
bird followed, and ranged themselves solemnly in a line before him,
and when he missed the presence of one familiar friend, he solved the
riddle of their strange appearance; the birds were in mourning for the
death of Golden Cloud.
They seemed to know it, too; they seemed to know that they had lost a
friend, and that they were about to pay the last tribute of respect to
their once guide and master. The bullfinches, their crimson breasts
hidden by their cloaks, looked, with their black masks of faces like
negro birds in mourning; the amiable linnets, unobtrusive and shy as
they generally were, were still more quiet and sad than usual; even
the daring blackbirds were subdued--with the exception of one who, in
the midst of a silent interval, struck up "Polly, put the kettle on,"
in its shrill whistle, but, observing the eyes of the tomtit fixed
upon it with an air of reproach, stopped in sudden remorse, with the
"kettle" sticking in its throat.
Dan had made a white shroud for Golden Cloud; and it was both
quaint and mournful to see it as it lay in its coffin--Dan's
money-box--surrounded by the mourners in their black cloaks. They
stood quite still, with their cunning little heads all inclined one
way, as if they were waiting for news concerning their dead leader
from the world beyond the present.
Joshua, with a glance of sorrow at the coffin, said,--
"Your money-box, Dan!"
"I wish I could have buried it in a flower-pot, Jo," replied Dan,
suppressing a sob.
"Why didn't you?"
"Mother said father would be angry,"--
Here the blackbird--perceiving that the tomtit was no longer observing
it, and inwardly fretting that it should have been pulled up short in
the midst of its favorite song; also feeling awkward, doubtless, with
a kettle in its throat--piped out, with amazing rapidity and
shrillness, "Polly, put the kettle on; we'll all have tea."
The blue feathers in the tomtit's tail quivered with indignation, and
its white-tipped wings fluttered reprovingly. Moral force was
evidently quite thrown away upon such a blackbird as that; so the
tomtit bestowed upon the recreant a sharp dig with its iron beak, and
the blackbird bore the punishment with meekness; merely giving vent,
in response, to a wonderful imitation of the crowing of an extremely
weak cock, who led a discontented life in a neighboring back-yard.
After which it relapsed into silence.
Dan, who had stopped his speech to observe this passage between the
birds, repeated,--
"Mother said father would be angry; he knows how many flower-pots we
have. So I used my money-box."
"But you would rather have a flowerpot, Dan?"
"I should have liked a flower-pot above all things; it seems more
natural for a bird. Something might grow out of it; something that
Golden Cloud would like to know is above it, if it was only a blade of
grass."
Joshua ran out of Dan's room and returned in a very few minutes with a
flowerpot with mignonette growing in it. He was almost breathless with
excitement.
"It is mine, Dan," he said, "and it is yours. I bought it with my own
money; and it shall be Golden Cloud's coffin."
"Kiss me, Jo," said Dan.
Joshua kissed him, and then carefully lifted the flower-roots from the
pot, and placed Golden Cloud in the soft mould beneath. A few tears
fell from Dan's eyes into the flowerpot coffin, as he looked for the
last time upon the form of his pet canary. Then Joshua replaced the
flower-roots, and arranged the earth, and Golden Cloud was ready for
burial.
"Play something, Jo," said Dan.
Joshua took his accordion in his hands, and played a slow solemn
march; and the birds, directed by Dan, hopped gravely round the
flower-pot, the tomtit keeping its eye sternly fixed upon the
rebellious blackbird, expressing in the look an unmistakable
determination to put an instant stop to the slightest exhibition of
indecency.
"I don't know where to bury it," said Dan, when the ceremony was
completed. "Ellen has been trying to pick out a flagstone in the yard,
but she made her fingers bleed, and then couldn't move it. And if it
was buried there, the stone would have to be trodden down, and the
flowers in the coffin couldn't grow."
"There's that little bit of garden in _our_ yard," said Joshua. "I can
bury it there, if you don't mind. I can put the flowerpot in so that
the mignonette will grow out of it quite nicely. It isn't very far,
Dan," continued Joshua, divining Dan's wish that Golden Cloud should
be buried near him; "only five yards off; and it is the best place we
know of."
Dan assenting, Joshua took the flowerpot, and buried it in what he
called his garden; which was an estate of such magnificent proportions
that he could have covered it with his jacket. He was proud of it
notwithstanding, and considered it a grand property. A boundary of
oyster-shells defined the limits of the estate, and served as a
warning to trespassing feet. In the centre of this garden Golden Cloud
was buried. When Joshua returned to Dan's room, the mourning-cloaks
were taken off the birds--who seemed very glad to get rid of them--and
they were sent to bed.
Dan was allowed to sit up an hour longer than usual that night, and he
and Joshua occupied those precious minutes in confidential
conversation. First they spoke of Golden Cloud, and then of Joshua's
prospects.
"You haven't made up your mind yet what you are going to be, Jo," said
Dan.
"I haven't made up my mind," replied Joshua, "but I have an idea. I
don't want you to ask me what it is. I will tell you soon--in a few
weeks perhaps."
"Where have you been to-day? You were late."
"I went to the waterside."
"To the river?"
"To the river."
"To the river that runs to the sea," said Dan musingly, with a dash of
regret in his voice. "What a wonderful sight it must be to see the
sea, as we read of it! Would you like to see it, Jo?"
"Dearly, Dan!"
"And to be on it?"
"Dearly, Dan!"
Dan looked at Joshua sadly. There was an eager longing in Joshua's
eyes, and an eager longing in the parting of his lips, as he sat with
hands clasped upon his knee.
"I can see a great many things that I have never seen," said Dan; "see
them with my mind, I mean. I can see gardens and fields and trees,
almost as they are. I can fancy myself lying in fields with the grass
waving about me. I can fancy myself in a forest with the great trees
spreading out their great limbs, and I can see the branches bowing to
each other as the wind sweeps by them. I can see a little stream
running down a hill, and hiding itself in a valley. I can even see a
river--but all rivers must be muddy, I think; not bright, like the
streams. But I can't see the sea, Jo. It is too big--too wonderful!"
Rapt in the contemplation of the subject, Dan and Joshua were silent
for a little while.
"Ships on the top of water-mountains," resumed Dan presently, "then
down in a valley like, with curling waves above them. That is what I
have read; but I can't see it. 'Robinson Crusoe' is behind you, Jo."
Joshua opened the book--it was a favorite one with the lads, as with
what lads is it not?--and skimmed down the pages as he turned them
over.
"'A raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us,'" he said.
"That is the shipwreck," said Dan, looking over Joshua's shoulder.
"Then here, farther down: 'I saw the sea come after me as high as a
great hill, and as furious as an enemy.' Think of that! Here picture."
The lads looked for the thousandth time at the rough wood-cut, in
which Robinson was depicted casting a look of terror over his shoulder
at the curling waves, ten times as tall as himself; his arms were
extended, and he was supposed to be running away from the waves;
although, according to the picture, nothing short of a miracle could
save him.
"Look!" said Joshua, turning a few pages back and reading, "'yonder lies
a dreadful monster on the side of that hillock, fast asleep.'"
"'I looked where he pointed,'" read Dan--it was a favorite custom with
them to read each a few lines at a time--"'and saw a dreadful monster
indeed, for it was a terrible great lion that lay on the side of the
shore, under the shade of a piece of the hill that hung as it were a
little over him. Xury, says I, you shall go on shore, and kill him.'"
"Could you kill a lion, Jo?" asked Dan, breaking off in his reading.
"I don't know," said Joshua, considering and feeling very doubtful of
his capability.
Dan resumed the reading:--
"I took our biggest gun, which was almost musket-bore, and loaded it
with a good charge of powder and with two slugs, and laid it down;
then I loaded another gun with two bullets; and the third (for we had
three pieces), I loaded with five smaller bullets.'"
"No, I couldn't kill a lion," said Joshua, in a tone of disappointed
conviction; "for I can't fire off a gun. But that occurred nearly two
hundred years ago, Dan. I don't suppose there are as many lions now as
there used to be."
"And ships are different, too, to what they were then, Jo," said Dan,
closing the book. "Stronger and better built. I dare say if it had
been a very strong ship that Robinson Crusoe went out in, he wouldn't
have been wrecked."
"I am glad he was, though; if he hadn't been, we shouldn't have been
able to read about him. It is beautiful, isn't it?"
"Beautiful to read," replied Dan. "But he was dreadfully miserable
sometimes; for twenty-four years and more he had no one to speak to.
It appears strange to me that he didn't forget how to speak the
English language, and that he didn't go mad. Now, Jo, supposing it was
you! Do you think, if you had no one to speak to for twenty years,
that you would be able to speak as well as you do now? Don't you think
you would stammer over a word sometimes, and lose the sense of it?"
Dan asked these questions so earnestly, that Joshua laughed, and
said,--
"Upon my word, I don't know, Dan."
But the time was to come when the memory of Dan's questions came to
Joshua's mind with a deep and solemn significance. "He had his parrot
certainly," continued Dan; "but what used he to say to it? 'Robin,
Robin, Robin Crusoe! Poor Robin Crusoe! How came you here? Where have
you been, Robin?' That wasn't much to say, and to be always saying;
and I am sure that if he kept on saying it for so many years, he must
have entirely forgotten what the meaning of it was. You try it,--say a
word, or two or three words, for a hundred times. You will begin to
wonder what it means before you come to the end."
"But he had his Bible; and you know what a comfort that was to him."
"Perhaps that was the reason he didn't go mad. I dare say, too, that
some qualities in him were strengthened and came to his aid because he
was so strangely situated. What qualities now, Jo?"
"I don't understand you, Dan."
"I _do_ say things sometimes you don't understand at first, don't I,
Jo?"
Joshua nodded good-humoredly.
"I am often puzzled myself to know what I mean. Leaving Robinson
Crusoe alone, and speaking of qualities, Jo, take me for an instance.
I am a cripple, and shall never be able to go about. And do you know,
Jo, that my mind is stronger than it would have been if I were not
helpless? I can see things."
"Can you see any thing now, Dan?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"I can see something that will separate you and me, Jo."
"Forever, Dan?"
"No, not forever; we shall be together sometimes and then you can tell
me all sorts of things that I shall never be able to see myself."
"Don't you think your legs will ever get strong?" asked Joshua.
"Never, Jo; they get worse and worse. And I feel, too, so weak, that I
am afraid I shall not have strength to use my crutches much longer.
Every thing about me--my limbs, and joints, and every thing--gets
weaker and weaker every day. If it wasn't for my body, I should be all
right. My mind is right. I can talk and think as well as if my body
were strong. Stupid bits of flesh and bone!" he exclaimed, looking at
his limbs, and good-humoredly scolding them. "Why don't you fly away
and leave me?"
At this point of the conversation Mrs. Taylor called out that it was
time for Dan to go to bed, so the lads parted. That night Joshua
dreamed that he killed a lion; and Dan dreamed that Golden Cloud came
out of the flower-pot, and it wasn't dead, but only pretending.
Dan had good reason for speaking in the way he did of his body, for it
distressed him very much. Soon after the death of Golden Cloud, he
grew so weak and ill that he was confined to his bed. But his mind
scarcely seemed to be affected by his bodily ills, and his
cheerfulness never deserted him. He had his dear winged companions
brought to his bedroom, and they hopped about his bed as contentedly
as could be. And there he played with them and took delight in them;
and, as he hearkened to their chirrupings, and looked at their pretty
forms, a sweet pleasure was in his eyes, a sweet pleasure was in his
heart. And this pleasure was enhanced by the presence of Joshua, who
spent a great deal of time with his sick friend.
The tender love that existed between the lads was undefiled by a
single selfish act or thought. They were one in sympathy and
sentiment. Joshua was Dan's almost only companion during his illness.
Dan's mother tended him and gave him his physic, which could not do
him any good, the doctor said; but Mrs. Taylor's household duties and
responsibilities occupied nearly the whole of her time; she could not
afford to keep a servant, and she had all the kitchen-work to do.
Ellen--Dan's twin-sister and Joshua's quondam sweetheart--was often in
the room; but, young as she was, she was already being employed about
the house assisting her mother. She scrubbed the floors and washed the
clothes; and, although she was so little that she had to stand on a
chair in the tiny yard to hang the clothes on the line, she was as
proud of her work, and took as much pleasure in it, as if she were a
grown woman, who had been properly brought up. Notwithstanding the
onerous nature of her duties, she managed to spend half an hour now
and again with Josh and Dan, and would sit quite still listening to
the conversation. Her presence in the room was pleasing to the
boy-friends, for Ellen was as modest and tidy a little girl as could
be met with in a day's walk.
Susan, Dan's unfortunate nursemaid, was a young woman now. But she had
a horror of the sick-room. She entertained a secret conviction that
she was a murderess, and really had some sort of an idea that if
Daniel died she would be taken up and hanged. She was as fascinated as
ever with Punch and Judy; but the fascination had something horrible
in it. Often when she was standing looking at the show--and she was
more welcome to the showman than she used to be, for now she sometimes
gave him a penny--she would begin to tremble when the hangman came on
the scene with his gallows, and would then fairly run away in a
fright. Ever since she had let Daniel slip from her arms out of the
window, there had been growing in her mind a fear that something
dreadful was following her; and a dozen times a day she would throw a
startled look behind her, as if to assure herself that there was
nothing horrible there. She had been sufficiently punished for her
carelessness. For a good many weeks after it occurred, bad little boys
and girls in the neighborhood used to call after her, "Ah-h-h Who
killed her little brother? Ah-h-h!" If she ran, they ran after her,
and hooted her with the dreadful accusation. It took different forms.
Now it was, "Ah-h-h-h! Who killed her little brother? Ah-h-h!" And now
it was, "Ah-h-h! Who'll be hung for killing her little brother?
Ah-h-h-h!" Such an effect did this cruel punishment have upon her,
that she would wake up in terror in the middle of the night with all
her fevered pulses quivering to the cry, "Ah-h-h-h! Who'll be hung for
killing her little brother? Ah-h-h-h!" But time, which cures all
things, relieved her. The bad boys and girls grew tired of saying the
same thing over and over again. A new excitement claimed their
attention, and poor Susan was allowed to walk unmolested through the
streets. But the effect remained in the terror-flashes that would
spring in her eyes, and in the agonized looks of fear that she would
throw behind her every now and again, without any apparent cause.
These feelings had such a powerful effect upon her, that she never
entered Dan's room unless she were compelled to do so; and once, when
Dan sent for her and asked her to forgive him for being naughty when
he was a baby, she was so affected that she did nothing but shed
remorseful tears for a week afterwards.
One day, when Dan was playing with the birds, and no other person but
he and Joshua was in the room, he said,--
"Do you think the birds know that I am so weak and ill, Jo, dear?"
"Sometimes I think they do, Dan," answered Joshua.
"Dear little things! You haven't any idea how weak I really am. But I
am strong enough for something."
"What, Dan?"
"If you don't ask any questions, I sha'n't tell you any stories,"
replied Dan gayly. "Lend me your penknife."
Joshua gave Dan his penknife, and when he came the next day Dan was
cutting strips of wood from one of his crutches.
"O Dan!" exclaimed Joshua, bursting into tears.
Dan looked at Joshua, and smiled.
"O you cry-baby!" he said. But he said it in a voice of exquisite
tenderness; and he drew Joshua's head on to the pillow, and he laid
his own beside it, and he kissed Joshua's lips.
"I shall not want my crutches any more," he whispered in Joshua's ear
as thus they lay; "that is all. It isn't as bad as you think."
"You are not going to die, Dan?" asked Joshua in a trembling voice.
"I don't think I am--yet. It is only because I am almost certain--I
feel it, Jo--that I shall be a helpless cripple all my life, and that
I shall not be able to move about, even with the help of crutches."
"Poor dear Dan!" said Joshua, checking his sobs with difficulty.
"Poor Dan! Not at all! I can read, I can think, and I can love you,
Jo, all the same. I have made up my mind what I am going to do. I
shall live in you. You are my friend, and strong as you are, you can't
love me more than I love you. And even if I was to die, dear"--
"Don't say that, Dan; I can't bear to think of it."
"Why? It isn't dreadful. If I was to die, we should still be
friends--we should still love each other. Don't you love Golden
Cloud?"
Joshua whispered "Yes."
"But Golden Cloud is not here. Yet you love him. And so do I, more
than I did when pet was alive. I don't quite know how it is with
birds, but I do know how it is with us. If you was here, Jo, and I was
there, we should meet again."
"Amen, Dan!"
"And it is nice to believe and know--as you and I believe and
know--that if we were parted, we should come together again by and by;
and that perhaps the dear little birds would be with us there as they
are here, and that we should love them as we love them now. They are
so pretty and harmless that I think God will let them come. Besides,
what would the trees do without them?"
"What do you mean, Dan, by saying that you are going to live in me?"
"It is a curious fancy, Jo, but I have thought of it a good deal, and
I want you to think of it too. I want to be with you, although I shall
not be able to move. You are going to be a hero, and are going to see
strange sights perhaps. I can see farther than you can; and I know the
meaning of your going down to the riverside, as you have done a good
many times lately. I know what you will make up your mind to be,
although I sha'n't say until you tell me yourself. Well, Jo, I want
you to fancy, if I don't know what is happening to you--if you are in
any strange place, and are seeing wonderful things--I want you to
fancy, 'Dan is here with me, although I cannot see him.' Will you do
that, Jo, dear?"
"Yes; wherever I am, and whatever I shall see, I will think, 'Dan is
here with me, although I cannot see him.'"
"That is friendship. This isn't," said Dan, holding up a finger; "this
is only a little bit of flesh. If it is anywhere about us, it is
here;" and he took Joshua's fingers, and pressed them to his heart.
Then, after a pause of a few moments, he said, "So don't cry any more
because I am cutting up my crutches; I am making some new things for
the birds."
They had a concert after that; and the blackbird whistled "Polly, put
the kettle on," to its heart's content; and the tomtit performed
certain difficult acrobatic tricks in token of approval.
Dan recovered so far from his sickness as to be able to leave his bed.
But it almost appeared as if he was right in saying that he should not
want his crutches. He had not sufficient strength in his shoulders to
use them. He had to be lifted in and out of bed, and sometimes could
not even wash and dress himself. Ellen Taylor was his nurse, and a
dear good nurse she proved herself to be. A cross word never passed
her lips. She devoted herself to the service of her helpless brother
with a very perfect love; and her nature was so beautiful in its
gentleness and tenderness that those qualities found expression in her
face, and made that beautiful also. Dan had yielded to Joshua's
entreaties not to destroy his crutches. "You might be able to use them
some day," Joshua would say. To which Dan would reply by asking gayly
if Joshua had ever heard of a miracle in Stepney. However, he kept his
crutches, and Joshua was satisfied. In course of time Joshua began to
train a few birds at his own house, and now and then Dan's parents
would allow Dan to be carried to Joshua's house, and to stop there for
a few days. When that occurred, Dan and Joshua slept together, and
would tell stories to each other long after the candle had been blown
out--stories of which Joshua was almost always the hero. Joshua had
one great difficulty to overcome when he first introduced the birds
into his house; that difficulty was the yellow-haired cat, of which
mention has already been made. With the usual amiability of her
species, the domestic tigress, directly she set eyes upon the birds,
determined to make a meal of them, and it required all Joshua's
vigilance to prevent the slaughter of the innocents. But he was
patient, and firm, and kind, and he so conquered the tigerish
propensities of the cat towards the birds, that in a few weeks she
began to tolerate them, and in a few weeks more to play with them and
to allow them to play with her, and gradually grew so cordial with
them that it might have been supposed she had kittened them by
mistake.