Corbie was getting ready to leave his nest; and before the Brown-eyed
Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl really knew what was happening, Corbie went
for his first ramble. He stepped out of his nest-box, which had been
placed on top of a flat, low shed, and strolled up the steep roof of the
woodshed, which was within reach. There he stood on the ridge-pole, the
little tike, and yelled, "Caw," in almost a grown-up way, as if he felt
proud and happy. Perhaps he did for a while. It really was a trip to be
proud of for one's very first walk in the world.
But the exercise made him hungry, and he soon yelled, "Kah!" in a tone
that meant, "Bring me my luncheon this minute or I'll beg till you do."
The Brown-eyed Boy took a dish of bread and milk to the edge of the low
roof, where the nest-box had been placed, and the Blue-eyed Girl called,
"Come and get it, Corbie."
Not Corbie! He had always had his meals brought to him. He liked
service, that crow. And besides, maybe he _couldn't_ walk down the roof
it had been so easy to run up. Anyway, his voice began to sound as if he
were scared as well as hungry, and later as if he were more scared than
hungry.
Now it stood to reason that Corbie's meals could not be served him every
fifteen minutes on the ridge-pole of a steep roof. So the long ladder
had to be brought out, and the crow carried to the ground and advised to
keep within easy reach until he could use his wings.
It was only a few days until Corbie could fly down from anything he
could climb up; and from that hour he never lacked for amusement. Of
course, the greedy little month-old baby found most of his fun for a
while in being fed. "Kah! Kah! Kah!" he called from sun-up to sun-down,
keeping the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl busy digging
earthworms and cutworms and white grubs, and soaking bread in milk for
him. "Gubble-gubble-gubble," he said as he swallowed it--it was all so
very good.
[Illustration: _"Kah! Kah! Kah!" he called from sun-up to sun-down._]
The joke of it was that Corbie, even then, had a secret--his first one.
He had many later on. But the very first one seems the most wonderful,
somehow. Yes, he could feed himself long before he let his foster
brother and sister know it; and I think, had he been a wild crow instead
of a tame one, he would have fooled his own father and mother the same
way--the little rascal.
No one would think, to see him with beak up and open, and with
fluttering wings held out from his sides, that the little chap begging
"Kah! kah! kah!" was old enough to do more than "gubble" the food that
was poked into his big throat. But for all that, when the Brown-eyed Boy
forgot the dish of earthworms and ran off to play, Corbie would listen
until he could hear no one near, and then cock his bright eye down over
the wriggling worms. Then, very slyly, he would pick one up with a jerk
and catch it back into his mouth. One by one he would eat the worms,
until he wanted no more; and then he would hide the rest by poking them
into cracks or covering them with chips, crooning the while over his
secret joke. "There-there-tuck-it-there," was what his croon sounded
like; but if the Brown-eyed Boy or the Blue-eyed Girl came near, he
would flutter out his wings at his sides and lift his open beak, his
teasing "Kah" seeming to say, "Honest, I haven't had a bite to eat since
you fed me last."
When his body was grown so big with his stuffing that he was almost a
full-sized crow, he stopped his constant begging for food. The days of
his greed were only the days of his growth needs, and the world was too
full of adventures to spend all his time just eating.
It was now time for him to take pleasure in his sense of sight,
and for a few, weeks he went nearly crazy with joy over yellow
playthings. He strewed the vegetable garden with torn and tattered
squash-blossoms--gorgeous bits of color that it was such fun to find
hidden under the big green leaves! He strutted to the flower-garden, and
pulled off all the yellow pansies, piling them in a heap. He jumped for
the golden buttercups, nipping them from their stems. He danced for joy
among the torn dandelion blooms he threw about the lawn. For Corbie was
like a human baby in many ways. He must handle what he loved, and spoil
it with his playing.
Perhaps Corbie inherited his dancing from his grandfather. It may have
come down to him with that old crow's merry spirit. Whether it was all
his own or in part his grandfather's, it was a wonderful dance, so full
of joy that the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl would leave their
play to watch him, and would call the Grown-Ups of the household, that
they, too, might see Corbie's "Happy Dance."
If he was pleased with his cleverness in hiding some pretty beetle in a
crack and covering it with a chip, he danced. If he spied the shiny
nails in the tool-shed, he danced. If he found a gay ribbon to drag
about the yard, he danced. But most and best he danced on a hot day when
he was given a bright basin of water. Singing a lively chattering tune,
he came to his bath. He cocked one bright eye and then the other over
the ripples his beak made in the water. Plunging in, he splashed long,
cooling flutters. Then he danced back and forth from the doorstep to
his glistening pan, chattering his funny tune the while.
Have you heard of a Highland Fling or a Sailor's Hornpipe? Well,
Corbie's Happy Dance was as gay as both together, when he jigged in the
dooryard to the tune of his own merry chatter. The Brown-eyed Boy and
the Blue-eyed Girl laughed to see him, and the Grown-Ups laughed. And
even as they laughed, their hearts danced with the little black crow--he
made them feel so very glad about the bath. For he had been too warm and
was now comfortable. The summer sun on his feathered body had tired him,
and the cooling water brought relief. "Thanks be for the bath. O bird,
be joyful for the bath!" he chattered in his own language, as he spread
his wings and gave again and yet again his Happy Dance.
But a basin, however bright, is not enough to keep a crow in the
dooryard; for a crow is a bird of adventure.
So it was that on a certain day Corbie flew over the cornfield and over
the tree-tops to the river; and so quiet were his wings, that the
Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl did not hear his coming, and they
both jumped when he perched upon a tiny rock near by and screamed,
"Caw," quite suddenly, as one child says, "Boo," to another, to surprise
him. Then the bird sang his chatter tune, and found a shallow place near
the bank, where he splashed and bathed. After that, the Blue-eyed Girl
showed him a little water-snail. He turned it over in his beak and
dropped it. It meant no more to him than a pebble. "I think you'll like
to eat it, Corbie," said the Brown-eyed Boy, breaking the shell and
giving it to him again; "even people eat snails, I've heard."
Corbie took the morsel and swallowed it, and soon was cracking for
himself all the snails his comrades gave him. But that was not enough,
for their eyes were only the eyes of children and his bright bird eyes
could find them twice as fast. So he waded in the river, playing "I spy"
with his foster brother and sister, and beating them, too, at the game,
though they had hunted snails as many summers as he had minutes.
He enjoyed doing many of the same things the children did. It was that,
and his sociable, merry ways, that made him such a good playfellow, and
because he wanted them to be happy in his pleasure and to praise his
clever tricks. Like other children, eating when he was hungry gave him
joy, and at times he made a game of it that was fun for them all. Every
now and then he would go off quietly by himself, and fill the hollow of
his throat with berries from the bushes near the river-bank and, flying
back to his friends, would spill out his fruit, uncrushed, in a little
pile beside them while he crooned and chuckled about it. He seemed to
have the same sort of good time picking berries in his throat cup and
showing how many he had found that the children did in seeing which
could first fill a tin cup before they sat down on the rocks to eat
them.
One day the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl were down by the
river, hunting for pearls. A pearl-hunter had shown them how to open
freshwater clamshells without killing the clams. Suddenly Corbie walked
up and, taking one of these hard-shelled animals right out of their
hands, he flew high overhead and dropped it down on the rocks near by.
Of course that broke the shell and of course Corbie came down and ate
the clam, without needing any vinegar or butter on it to make it taste
good to him. How he learned to do this, the children never knew. Perhaps
he found out by just happening to drop one he was carrying, or perhaps
he saw the wild crows drop their clams to break the shells: for after
nesting season they used often to come down from the mountainside to
fish by the river for snails and clams and crayfish, when they were not
helping the farmers by eating up insects in the fields.
Corbie liked the crayfish, too, as well as people like lobsters and
crabs, and he had many an exciting hunt, poking under the stones for
them and pulling them out with his strong beak.
There seemed to be no end of things Corbie could do with that beak of
his. Sometimes it was a little crowbar for lifting stones or bits of
wood when he wanted to see what was underneath; for as every outdoor
child, either crow or human, knows, very, very interesting things live
in such places. Sometimes it was a spade for digging in the dirt.
Sometimes it was a pick for loosening up old wood in the hollow tree
where he kept his best treasures. Sometimes it worked like a
nut-cracker, sometimes like a pair of forceps, and sometimes--oh, you
can think of a dozen tools that beak of Corbie's was like. He was as
well off as if he had a whole carpenter's chest with him all the time.
But mostly it served like a child's thumb and forefinger, to pick
berries, or to untie the bright hair-ribbons of the Blue-eyed Girl or
the shoe-laces of the Brown-eyed Boy. And once in a long, long while,
when some stupid child or Grown-Up, who did not know how to be civil to
a crow, used him roughly, his beak became a weapon with which to pinch
and to strike until his enemy was black and blue. For Corbie learned, as
every sturdy person must, in some way or other, how to protect himself
when there was need.
Yes, Corbie's beak was wonderful. Of course, lips are better on people
in many ways than beaks would be; but we cannot do one tenth so many
things with our mouths as Corbie could with his. To be sure, we do not
need to, for we have hands to help us out. If our arms had grown into
wings, though, as a bird's arms do, how should we ever get along in this
world?
[Illustration: _Corbie slipped off and amused himself._]
The weeks passed by. A happy time for Corbie, whether he played with the
children or slipped off and amused himself, as he had a way of doing now
and then, after he grew old enough to feel independent. The world for
him was full of adventure and joy. He never once asked, "What can I do
now to amuse me?" Never once. His brain was so active that he could
fill every place and every hour full to the brim of interest. He had a
merry way about him, and a gay chatter that seemed to mean, "Oh, life to
a crow is joy! JOY!" And because of all this, it was not only the
Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl who loved him. He won the hearts
of even the Grown-Ups, who had sometimes found it hard to be patient
with him during the first noisy days, when he tired them with his
frequent baby "kah-and-gubble," before he could feed himself.
But, however bold and dashing he was during the day, whatever the sunny
hours had held of mirth and dancing, whichever path he had trod or
flown, whomever he had chummed with--when it was the time of dusk,
little Corbie sought the one he loved best of all, the one who had been
most gentle with him, and snuggling close to the side of the Blue-eyed
Girl, tucked his head into her sleeve or under the hem of her skirt, and
crooned his sleepy song which seemed to mean:--
Oh! soft and warm the crow in the nest
Finds the fluff of his mother's breast.
Oh! well he sleeps, for she folds him tight--
Safe from the owl that flies by night.
Oh! far her wings have fluttered away,
Nor does it matter in the day.
But keep me, pray, till again 't is light,
Safe from the owl that flies by night.
Thus, long after he would have been weaned, for his own good, from such
care, had he remained wild, Corbie, the tame crow, claimed protection
with cunning, cuddling ways that taught the Blue-eyed Girl and her
brother and the Grown-Ups, too, something about crows that many people
never even guess. For all their rollicking care-free ways, there is,
hidden beneath their black feathers, an affection very tender and
lasting; and when they are given the friendship of humans, they find
touching ways of showing how deep their trust can be.
Before the summer was over, Corbie had as famous a collection as his
great grandfather. The children knew where he kept it, and used
sometimes to climb up to look at his playthings. They never disturbed
them except to take out the knitting-needle, thimble, spoons, or things
like that, which were needed in the house. The bright penny someone had
given him, the shiny nails, the brass-headed tacks, the big white
feather, the yellow marble, all the bits of colored glass, and an old
watch, they left where he put them; for they thought that he loved his
things, or he would not have hidden them together; and they thought, and
so do I, that he had as much right to his treasures to look at and care
for as the Brown-eyed Boy had to his collection of pretty stones and the
Blue-eyed Girl to the flowers in her wild garden.
After his feathers were grown, in the spring, Corbie had been really
good-looking in his black suit; but by the first of September he was
homely again. His little side-feather moustache dropped out at the top
of his beak, so that his nostrils were uncovered as they had been when
he was very young. The back of his head was nearly bald, and his neck
and breast were ragged and tattered.
Yes, Corbie was molting, and he had a very unfinished sort of look while
the new crop of paint-brushes sprouted out all over him. But it was
worth the discomforts of the molt to have the new feather coat, all
shiny black; and Corbie was even handsomer than he had been during the
summer, when cold days came, and he needed his warm thick suit.
At this time all the wild crows that had nested in that part of the
country flew every night from far and wide to the famous crow-roost, not
far from a big peach orchard. They came down from the mountain that
showed like a long blue ridge against the sky. They flew across a road
that looked, on account of the color of the dirt, like a pinkish-red
ribbon stretching off and away. They left the river-edge and the fields.
Every night they gathered together, a thousand or more of them. Corbie's
father and mother were among them, and Corbie's two brothers and two
sisters. But Corbie was not with those thousand crows.
No cage held him, and no one prevented his flying whither he wished;
but Corbie stayed with the folk who had adopted him. A thousand wild
crows might come and go, calling in their flight, but Corbie, though
free, chose for his comrades the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl.
I thought all along it would be so if they were good to him; and that is
why I said, the day he was kidnaped, that you need not be sorry for
Corbie--not very.
VIII
ARDEA'S SOLDIER
In years long gone by, soldiers called "knights" used to protect the
rights of other people; and, when the weak were in danger, these
soldiers went forth to fight for them. They were so brave, these knights
of old, that there was nothing that could make them afraid. Dragons
even, which looked like crocodiles, with leather wings and terrible
snatching claws and fiery eyes and breath that smoked--dragons, even, so
the stories go, could not turn a knight away from his path of duty.
Mind, I am not telling you that there ever were creatures that looked
like that; but certain it is that there were dangers dreadful to meet,
and "dragon" is a very good name to call them by.
You know, do you not, that there are soldiers, still, who protect the
rights of others; and although we do not commonly call them "knights,"
they still fight for the weak, and are so brave that dangers as fearsome
as dragons, even, cannot scare them.
There was such a soldier in Ardea's camp; and if he had lived in olden
days, he would probably have been called "Knight of the Snowy Heron."
Ardea was a bride that spring, and perhaps never was there one much
lovelier. Her wedding garment was the purest white; and instead of a
veil she wore, draped from her shoulders, snowy plumes of rare beauty,
which reached to the bottom of her gown, where the dainty tips curled up
a bit, then hung like the finest fringe.
[Illustration: _She wore, draped from her shoulders, snowy plumes of
rare beauty._]
The Soldier watched her as she stood alone at the edge of the water, so
small and white and slender against the great cypress trees bearded with
Spanish moss, and thought she made a picture he could never forget. And
when her mate came out to her, in a white wedding-robe like her own,
with its filmy cape of mist-fine plumes, Ardea's Soldier smiled gently,
for he loved Heron Camp and shared, in his heart, the joys of their
home-coming.
Ardea and her mate took a pleasant trip, looking for a building place at
the edge of a swamp. They did not object to neighbors; which was
fortunate, as there were so many other herons in the camp that it would
have been hard to find a very secret spot for their nest. After looking
it over and talking about it a bit, they chose a mangrove bush for their
very own. They had never built a house before, but they wasted no time
in hunting for a carpenter or teacher, but went to work with a will,
just as if they knew how. It was like playing a game of "five-six, pick
up sticks"; only they did not lay them straight but in a scraggly
criss-cross sort of platform, with big twigs twelve inches long at the
bottom and smaller ones on top. Then, when it looked all ready for a
nice soft lining, Ardea laid an egg right on the rough sticks. Rather
lazy and shiftless, don't you think? or maybe they didn't know any
better, poor young things who had never had a home before! Ah, but there
was another pair of snowy herons building in the bush next door, and
they didn't put in anything soft for their eggs, either; and six or
eight bushes farther on, a little blue heron was already sitting on her
blue eggs in almost exactly the same sort of nest.
So that is the kind of carpenters herons are! Sticks laid tangled up in
a mass is the way they build! Yes, that is all--just some old dead
twigs. I mean that is all you could _see_; but never think for a minute
that there wasn't something else about that nest; for Ardea and her mate
had lined it well with love, and so it was, indeed, a home worth
building.
[Illustration: _Near Ardea's Home._]
In less than a week there were four eggs beneath the white down
comforter that Ardea tucked over them; and the little mother was as
well pleased as if she had had five, like her neighbors, the other snowy
heron and the little blue heron.
If the eggs of the little blue heron were blue, would not those of the
snowy herons be pure white? No, the color of eggs does not need to match
the color of feathers; and Ardea's eggs and those of her next-bush
neighbor were so much like the beautiful blue ones of the little blue
heron, that it would be very hard for you to tell one from the other.
Perhaps Ardea could not have told her own eggs if she had not remembered
where she had built her nest. As it was, she made no mistake, but
snuggled cosily over her pretty eggs, doubling up her long slender black
legs and her yellow feet as best she could.
If she found it hard to sit there day after day, she made no fuss about
it; and probably she really wanted to do that more than anything else
just then, since the quiet patience of the most active birds is natural
to them when they are brooding their unhatched babies. Then, too, there
was her beautiful mate for company and help; for when Ardea needed to
leave the nest for food and a change, the father-bird kept house as
carefully as need be.
To her next-bush neighbors and the little blue herons Ardea paid no
attention, unless, indeed, one of them chanced to come near her own
mangrove bush. Then she and her mate would raise the feathers on the top
of their heads until they looked rather fierce and bristly, and spread
out their filmy capes of dainty plumes in a threatening way. That
criss-cross pile of old dead twigs was a dear home after all, being
lined, you will remember, with the love of Ardea and her mate; and they
both guarded it as well as they were able.
At last the quiet brooding days came to an end, and four funny little
herons wobbled about in Ardea's nest. Their long legs and toes stuck out
in all directions, and they couldn't seem to help sprawling around. If
there had been string or strands of moss or grass in the nest, they
would probably have got all tangled up. As it was, they sometimes nearly
spilled out, and saved themselves only by clinging to the firm sticks
and twigs. So it would seem that their home was a good sort for the
needs of their early life, just as it was; and no doubt a heron's nest
for a heron is as suitable a building as an oriole's is for an oriole.
[Illustration: _That criss-cross pile of old dead twigs was a dear home,
and they both guarded it._]
It would take some time before the babies of Ardea would be able to
straighten up on their long, slim legs and go wading. Until that day
came, their father and mother would have to feed them well and often.
Now the marsh where the snowy herons went fishing, where the shallow
water was a favorite swimming-place for little fishes, was ten miles or
more from their nest. Some kinds of herons, perhaps most kinds, are
quiet and stately when they hunt, standing still and waiting for their
game to come to them, or moving very slowly and carefully. But Ardea and
the other snowy herons ran about in a lively way, spying out the little
fishes with their bright yellow eyes, and catching them up quickly in
their black beaks. After swallowing a supply of food, Ardea took wing
and returned across the miles to her young. Standing on the edge of her
nest and reaching down with her long neck, she took the bill of one of
her babies in her own mouth, and dropped part of what she had swallowed
out of her big throat down into his small one. When she had fed her
babies and preened her pretty feathers a bit, she was off again on the
ten-mile flight; for many a long journey she and her mate must take ere
their little ones could feed themselves. But ten miles over and over and
over again were as nothing to the love she had for her children; and
faithfully as she had brooded her eggs, she now began the task of
providing their meals. She seemed so happy each time she returned, that
perhaps she was a little bit worried while she was away; but there is no
reason to think she really was afraid that any great harm could come to
them.
Certainly she was unprepared for what she found when she flew back from
her fourth fishing trip. Even when she reached Heron Camp, she did not
understand. There are some things it is not given the mind of a bird to
know.
She could not know, poor dear, that there were people in the world who
coveted her beautiful wedding plumes. Women there were, who wished to
make themselves look better by wearing the feathers that Nature had
given snowy herons for their very own. And men there were, who thought
to make themselves grander in the dress of their organization by walking
about with heron plumes waving on their heads. The two kinds of white
herons with wonderful plumes that have been put to such uses are called
Egrets and Snowy Egrets, and the feathers, when they are stripped from
the birds, are called by the French name of _aigrette_.
Now, of course, Ardea could not know about this, or that the
Plume-Hunters had come to steal her wedding feathers. But she knew well
enough that danger was at hand, and that in times of trouble a mother's
place is beside her babies. Her heart beat quickly with a new terror,
but she stayed, the brave bird stayed! And all about her the other
herons stayed also. They had no way to fight for their lives, and they
might have flown far and safely on their strong wings; but none of them
would desert the home built with love while the frightened babies were
calling to their fathers and mothers.