dining-room shelves. These were quite low down to the floor, and if he
could find a gap where a book was taken out, he squeezed himself in,
and as the shelves were very wide, there was plenty of room for him to
run about behind the books. I suppose he liked the darkness, and
thought it was something like one of his native burrows, and if he
could not remember them, it was his natural propensity to live in
narrow dark passages, and therefore he preferred such places to the
open daylight. It was very funny to see his little brown face peeping
out between the books. Sometimes it happened that a book was replaced
whilst Bunny was snugly hidden behind, and then we missed him when we
went to put him to bed in his box for the night. First we went to look
for him in all the rooms, and about the passages, and if he was not in
the bookcase he would always come when we called, so when we saw
nothing of the little animal, we went and took a book out of each
shelf, and we were sure to see his bright eyes glistening in the dark,
and then out came little Bunny with a bound. He did not seem to care
for running into the garden or yard, which was odd; but as he grew
older his taste for burrowing showed itself strongly.
As he used to follow the cook about everywhere, he had of course been
often down to the cellar and larder. These were paved with small round
stones, and there was an inner cellar, or rather a sort of receptacle
for lumber of all sorts, which was not paved at all; it had a floor of
earth. Old hampers and boxes were put away there, sometimes potatoes
and carrots, etc., were spread on the floor there, and altogether the
place had a very damp, earthy sort of smell, perhaps very like the
inside of a rabbit burrow, and one day the cook came to ask Mamma to
come and look at the litter Bunny had made in the cellar. We all ran
down, and saw that Bunny had scratched up a quantity of earth from
between the little stones with which the cellar was paved; in fact the
cellar floor looked almost like a flower-bed, all earth. The door into
the inner cellar happened to be shut, or most probably he would have
commenced his operations where there were no stones to hinder him.
Mamma said that the gardener should press down the earth again between
the stones, and tighten any that were loose, and that Bunny must not be
allowed at any time to go down into the cellar. But it was very
difficult to prevent his doing so. In summer, the meat and the milk
were kept down there, as being the coolest place, and the beer barrels
were there, and the coals, in different compartments; and to fetch all
these different things somebody or other was perpetually opening the
door at the top of the stairs. So Bunny frequently found opportunities
for slipping in at the open door, and he came every day less and less
into the sitting-rooms. One evening he had the cunning to hide himself
behind some of the empty hampers in the inner cellar, and when we
called him, and looked about for him in the evening, no Bunny appeared.
In vain we took books out of all the shelves, hunted behind the
curtains, under the sofas, and in all his usual hiding-places, we were
obliged to give it up, and go to bed without finding him.
The next morning, we renewed our search, and seeing no sign of his work
in the outer cellar, we determined to have a regular rummage in the
inner one. After moving a great many bottles, baskets, boxes, and
barrels, we found a great hole. The earth had evidently been just
scratched out; for it was quite moist and fresh. The busy little fellow
had made a long burrow during the night in the floor of the cellar.
When he heard our voices, he came out of his newly-made retreat, and we
took him up stairs and gave him some food; for he was quite ravenous
after his hard work. Then we consulted with his friend the cook, how to
manage about him in future. It would certainly never do to let him go
on burrowing under the house; in time we should have all the walls
undermined, and the house would come tumbling down upon us, burying us
in the ruins. Terrible, indeed, was the catastrophe that we created in
our imagination from the small foundation of Bunny's having scratched a
hole in the cellar! And now that he had once tried and enjoyed the
pleasures of burrowing, we could scarcely expect that he would
relinquish it again.
We went to talk about it to Mamma; and we proposed that Bunny should
live in the garden.
"But," said Mamma, "I shall have all my nice borders scratched into
holes; and the roots of my beautiful rose-trees laid bare; and, in
short, the whole flower-garden destroyed, to say nothing of the
kitchen-garden, which would, of course, become a mere burrow."
"Well, then, Mamma," we said; "we must make him a much larger house,
and keep him in it altogether. We will not let him have his liberty at
all; and then it will be impossible for him to do any mischief."
But Mamma said, that although that plan would certainly prevent Bunny
from burrowing; she thought that it would not be a very happy life for
the poor little animal, who had been accustomed all his life to perfect
liberty, and had never been confined to one place.
We could think of no other plan; so begged Mamma to tell us what she
thought we had better do.
"Do you remember," said Mamma, "seeing a number of little brown
rabbits, running about and darting in and out of their holes, in the
wild part of the fir-woods, where we sometimes drive. There is a great
deal of fern and grass about there, and nothing at all to prevent the
rabbits from burrowing and enjoying their lives without any one to
molest them. I advise you to take Bunny there, and to turn him loose in
the fir-wood; he will very soon find some companion and make himself a
home; and do you not think he will be far happier when leading that
life of freedom, than if kept in a wooden house, or even if allowed to
burrow in a cellar?"
After some deliberation, we agreed to follow Mamma's advice; and the
next day we drove to the fir-wood, taking Bunny with us in a basket.
We drove slowly along the skirts of the wood, looking for a nice place
to turn him out. At last, we came to an open space among the fir-trees;
the ground was there thickly covered with long grass, ferns, and
wild-flowers, and the banks beneath the firs were full of rabbit-holes;
we saw many little heads popping in and out.
"This is just the place," we cried. "What a beautiful sweet fresh place
to live in; and we got down and went a little way into the grass; then
we placed the basket on the ground and opened it. Bunny soon put up his
head, snuffed the sunny sweet air, and glanced about him in all
directions. No doubt he was filled with wonder at the change from our
kitchen or dark cellars, to this lovely wood; with a bright blue sky,
instead of a ceiling; waving green trees, instead of white walls; and
on the ground, in place of a bare stone floor; inexhaustible delights
in the way of food; and soft earth for burrowing. Having admired all
this, he jumped out of the basket; first he nibbled a little bit of
grass, then ran a little way among the ferns.
"Do let us watch him till he runs into a rabbit hole," we said to
Mamma.
And Mamma said she would drive up and down the road that skirted the
firs, for about half-an-hour, and we might watch Bunny.
He wandered about for a long time among the grass and plants; and at
last we lost sight of him in a thick mass of broom and ferns.
Mamma thought it was useless to search for him; there was no doubt that
he would thoroughly appreciate the advantages of the fir-wood. So we
gathered a large bunch of wild flowers, jumped into the carriage, and
left Bunny in his beautiful new home.
THE JACKDAW.
One morning, my sister was sitting with Mamma at the dining-room
window, when they saw me coming down the garden walk, with my head bent
down, and something perched on my back.
"Look!" said Mamma, "What has your brother got on his back?"
Up started my sister.
"Oh!" cried she, "It is something alive; it is black: what can it be?"
And she darted out to look at my prize.
It was a fine glossy fully-fledged Jackdaw. The gardener, knowing my
love for pets of all kinds, had rescued it from the hands of some boys,
who had found a nest of jackdaws, and had presented it to me.
Although it was quite young, it looked like a solemn old man; the crown
of its head was becoming very grey; and it put its head on one side,
and examined us in such a funny manner, listening with a wise look when
we spoke, as if considering what we were saying.
The gardener had cut one of his wings pretty close, and the remaining
wing was not very large. We set him down in the garden, and watched him
for some time, in order to be certain that he could not fly over the
low wall that separated our garden from the road. And we soon saw that
he could only flutter a few inches from the ground, and hop in a very
awkward sidelong manner; there was no fear of his escaping.
Luckily, there was a large wicker cage, that had once been used for a
thrush, in the coach-house. We fetched this out, cleaned it, and placed
Jacky in it on the ground near some shady bushes. We left the door
open, that he might hop in and out, and always kept a saucer of food
for him in the cage.
He soon became very tame; would hop on our wrists and let us carry him
about, and liked sitting on our shoulders, as we went about the garden.
Near his cage was a large lilac-bush, and he found that he could hop
nearly to the top by means of its branches; and he picked out for
himself a nice perch there, in a sort of bower of lilac-leaves and
flowers.
Finding this much pleasanter than the cage, he soon deserted that
entirely; and at night, and whenever he was not hopping about the
garden, or playing with us, he was to be found always on the same twig
in the lilac bush.
We used to place his saucer of sopped bread, and his saucer of water at
the foot of the bush.
When we passed, he used to shout "Jacky!" and soon began to try other
words; and tried to imitate all sorts of sounds and noises.
In the heat of summer, when the bed-room windows were all opened at
daylight, we used to hear him practising talking in his bush. He barked
like the dogs; utterly failed in his attempt to sing like the canaries;
mewed like pussy very well, indeed; and then kept up an indescribable
kind of chattering, which we called saying his lessons; for we supposed
that he intended it to imitate our repeating of lessons, which he heard
every morning through the dining-room window.
Sometimes we heard more noise than he could possibly make alone; and we
softly got out of our beds, and peeped through the window to discover
what it was about. There must have been six or seven other jackdaws,
running round and about his bush, hopping up and down into it;
apparently trying how they liked his house, and having all sorts of fun
and conversation with our Jacky.
Within a few fields of our garden walls, stood the old ruin of a hall
or manor-house; it had once, doubtless, been large and handsome;
nothing now remained of it but the outer wall, a few mullioned windows,
and some remnants of stone-staircases. The walls being very thick and
much broken, afforded excellent holes and corners for jackdaws'-nests;
for owls and such things. Indeed, it was from one of these holes in the
ruined hall, that Jacky had been taken. And the numerous feathered
inhabitants of the "Old Hall," as it was called, having spied our pet,
sitting in lonely state in his bower among the lilac leaves, doubtless
thought he would be grateful for a little company, and the society of
his equals; so kindly used to pay him a visit in the early morning,
before children or gardener were likely to interfere.
We were rather afraid that the wild jackdaws might entice away our
Jacky, by describing to him their own free life, and the mode of
existence in the crumbling walls of their home. But when Mamma made us
observe how very awkwardly he hopped about with his cropped wing, and
how utterly impossible it was for him to fly across two or three
fields, and to the top of the ruin, we were satisfied that his stay in
our garden was compulsory; and we agreed that the "Old Hall" jackdaws
might visit him as much as they pleased. But they never once came at
any other time than very early in the morning.
I suppose Jacky thought that he had kept these visits a profound secret
from us.
As he grew older, he became extremely mischievous. When Mamma was busy
in the garden, he used to come down from his tree and follow her about
from one border to another, watching earnestly whatever she was doing;
and whilst she tied up the plants, or gathered away the dead leaves and
flowers, he used to put his head on one side, and seemed to be
considering for what purpose this or that was done.
Mamma was planting a quantity of sweet peas, in order to have a second
and late crop, after the first had begun to fade. She planted them in
circles, twelve peas in each, and a white marker was stuck in the
centre of each patch. As it was fine warm weather, Mamma expected that
these peas would very soon appear; but in a few days, when she went to
look at them, she saw that all the white markers had been pulled up and
thrown on one side.
So she called to us, "Children! I am afraid you have meddled with my
seed markers; for they have all been taken out, and I stuck them firmly
in the ground; some one must have touched them."
We assured Mamma that we were not the delinquents; indeed, we were too
fond of all the beautiful flowers to injure them in any way.
When we looked closer, we saw that there was an empty hole in each
place where Mamma had planted a pea. They had every one been picked
out.
Whilst we were wondering who could have done this, the gardener passed,
and Mamma showed him the empty holes, and the markers pulled up; and
asked him who he thought likely to have done such a piece of mischief.
"I shouldn't wonder if it war he," said the gardener, pointing to
Jacky, who, as usual, was close to Mamma, listening attentively to all
we said.
"Jacky, Jacky!" shouted he, making some of his awkward jumps at the
same time, and going close to the ring of little holes, he peeped down
them, with his head on one side, as if to make sure that he had left
nothing at the bottom.
We could not help laughing at the queer old-fashioned manner of the
creature; but, at the same time, it was very annoying for Mamma to lose
all the pretty and sweet flowers through Jacky's greediness.
She said she would plant some more immediately; and she sent my sister,
with Jacky on her wrist, to the front of the house, with orders to stay
there till the planting was finished, so that the mischievous bird
might not watch the whole process, and would not know where the seeds
were planted.
I staid to help Mamma; we planted rings of sweet peas in different
places from the old ones; and instead of white markers, which might
attract Jacky's notice, we stuck in a great many bramble-sticks, all
round every patch, so closely that a much smaller bird than Jacky would
have found it difficult to squeeze himself in between the rough prickly
twigs. Then we thought that all was safe, and we let Jacky come back to
his perch.
The next day he had not touched the brambles; but I suppose he had
thought it necessary to do something in the way of gardening; so he had
fetched up, from the farthest end of the kitchen garden, a roll of
bass, or strips of old matting, that was used for tying plants and
flowers to sticks. This he had pulled into little shreds, all about the
lawn and the flower-beds, and a great deal of time and trouble he must
have spent upon his work. How the gardener did scold! saying, that it
would take the whole afternoon to clear away the litter, and that Jacky
did more mischief than he was worth; and so on.
But Jacky was a privileged person, and did pretty much as he liked; so
it was of no use to complain about him.
It was most amusing to see how he teased the gardener when mowing was
going on; he would watch his opportunity, and when no one chanced to be
looking, he would run away with a bit of carpet or piece of old
flannel, that the gardener used to wipe his scythe; or else he would
drag away the hone, or sharpening-stone, and hide it under his
lilac-bush.
So gardener, finding him a great nuisance on mowing days, told us that
he should certainly mow off Jacky's head or legs some day; for he would
come hopping about among the cut grass; and if taken up and landed in
his tree, he would immediately come down again, and thrust himself just
in the way.
So for the future, we took care on mowing days to shut up Jacky in the
nursery, or in the dining-room, where he used with a rueful countenance
to watch all proceedings through the window, pecking now and then in a
spiteful way at the glass.
[Illustration: THE SPARROW-HAWK AND CAT.
_Page 45._]
Whilst Jacky was in our possession, we had a sparrow-hawk for a short
time. Papa brought him home one evening in a paper bag; he was a very
handsome fellow, with such brilliant eyes, and such a beak! He was
perfectly wild, and bit furiously at any hand that approached him; so
we covered up his head in a pocket-handkerchief, whilst gardener
fastened a small chain round his leg. Then we fixed a short stump in
the grass, not far from Jacky's lilac, and fastened the end of the
chain to the stump. So he could run and hop about for a yard or two
round the stump; we intended to keep him there until he became a little
tamer, and hoped that the example of his neighbour would teach him good
manners. But instead of taking Jacky as a pattern, the new comer
bullied him in a most dreadful way. We might have saved ourselves the
trouble of chaining him, for he snapped the chain in two with his
strong beak, and came down from his stump quite at liberty to roam
about. Strange to say, he did not go away altogether, but walked in at
the dining-room window. We were seated at tea, and not knowing that the
hawk had liberated himself, we were quite startled at hearing a curious
flapping in the corner of the room, but we soon saw the two brilliant
eyes, and there sat Mr. Sparrow-hawk, on the top of the book-case. We
took him out and confined him to his stump again. There he staid
quietly all night; but next day we heard Jacky pitying himself in his
bush, and we found him fidgetting about in the top of the lilac, and
fearing to come down, because Mr. Sparrow-hawk was walking about at the
bottom, and whenever poor Jacky ventured down, he was darted at by the
new comer, and hastily scrambled up the bush again. This was done out
of pure love of teasing, for the hawk would not condescend to touch
Jacky's food, consisting of sopped bread; but yet he would not let the
poor old grey-head come down to eat his own breakfast. Jacky was quite
crest-fallen, and we procured a stronger chain which held Mr.
Sparrow-hawk fast on his stump for several days, during which time
Jacky regained his equanimity.
But then the chain was burst again, and this time the hawk took to
chasing the cats as well as tormenting Jacky. We had two cats, they
were very good friends with Jacky, and used wander about the garden a
good deal; quite unconscious of what was in store for them; they
commenced playing about Mr. Sparrow-hawk's stump, when down stepped the
gentleman and nipped the tail of the nearest cat quite tightly in his
sharp beak, poor pussy shrieked and mewed, and we had to go to her
rescue. At last we left off chaining the hawk, as we found that he did
not try to escape, but sat on his stump or else came into the house;
and we often were startled by finding him perched on a table, or on the
bannisters, but at the same time he would not become tame, and he so
terrified and annoyed poor Jacky, that we soon sent him away; and
certainly the cats and Jacky must have rejoiced, when they found the
savage owner of the stump had disappeared. The only sign of
civilization which Mr. Sparrow-hawk had shown, was one evening, when a
gentleman who visited us, happened to be playing the flute in the
drawing-room. The hawk never came into the room when any one was there,
and had very often heard the piano and singing; but probably the
peculiar sound of the flute had something very pleasing to the bird's
ear, for although this room was full of people, he came to the open
window, hopped in, and gradually approached the flute-player, till he
perched himself on the end of the flute. When the music ceased, the
hawk, quietly took himself out of the window again, and next day was as
wild as ever.
One of Jacky's great pleasures during the summer, was bathing or
washing at the sink in the back kitchen. We always took care that he
was provided with a large saucer of water, which stood beneath his
lilac bush, but this did not appear to be sufficient. One day when the
cook was pumping water out of the sink-pump, Jacky jumped up, and put
his head under the stream, shouting and fluttering, with expressions of
the greatest delight; and after this he generally came every day into
the back kitchen, and called and hopped about until cook came and
pumped over him. Such a miserable half drowned creature as he looked,
with all his feathers sticking close to his body; then he used to
repair to the kitchen and sit before the fire, till he became dry.
Sometimes he got upon the fender, and when the fire was large, it made
his feathers appear quite to smoke, by so rapidly drawing out the
water. Once he was actually singeing, when the cook snatched him up and
put him out of the window, and it was strange that he seemed to like
the roasting at the fire, quite as well as the cold water.
He soon discovered the time that tea was prepared in the kitchen, and
regularly came to the window to ask for tea and bread and butter; so a
saucer of tea and a piece of bread and butter were placed on the
window-sill for him, as punctually as the cook's own tea was prepared;
and Jacky sipped his tea, and ate his bread and butter like any old
washerwoman. But whilst sitting at the kitchen window he spied all
sorts of things on cook's little work-table that strongly tempted his
thieving propensities, and coming cautiously one morning, when the cook
was absent, he pretty well cleared the table; very many journeys in and
out must it have cost him, for when the poor cook returned to her
kitchen, she began exclaiming. "Who has been meddling with my work and
all my things?" and she called to me and my sister, and asked if we had
hidden her work materials to plague her. "No indeed," we said, "we have
not been here this morning at all."
"Well then," said she, "what has become of my thimble, my scissors, and
reels of cotton, my work, that I laid upon the table, and there was
also an account-book of your Mamma's, and a pen; I don't see one of
them!" We hunted about for the missing articles. The kitchen window
looked out on a plantation, not far from Jacky's bush. My sister looked
out. "Oh!" cried she, "there is one leaf of your account-book on the
border." "And I declare," exclaimed cook, who had run to the window,
"there is one of my new reels twisted round and round yon rose tree; I
do believe it's that mischeevous bird." We were delighted. We both
sprang out of the window--"There's your thimble," I shouted, "full of
wet mould!" "And here are your scissors," cried my sister, "in Jacky's
drinking saucer! And there is your half-made shirt, hanging on the rose
bush beneath the window!" Poor cook could not forbear laughing. "Well,"
said she, "he must have been right-down busy to take off all these
things in about five minutes. Gather up my things for me, like good
bairns." So we ran about picking up the things; the cotton reels were
restored with about half their supply of cotton, as he had twisted them
all round about the stems of different plants; the pen was stuck into
the earth, and as for the account-book, the leaves were all about the
garden, some he had even carried down to the cucumber frame, quite at
the other end. But he was such a favourite, that even this sort of
trick was allowed to pass unpunished. He furnished us with much
amusement; and I am now coming to his sad end.
The wall which separated our garden from the road, was very rough and
old, full of holes and crumbling mortar. Once or twice, when sitting at
the windows, we had seen a small animal run across the gravel walk; we
could not discern whether it was most like a rat or a weasel, and
probably it came in through one of the holes in the wall. We did think
of Jacky; but knowing that he always roosted at the top of the lilac
bush, we supposed that he was quite out of the reach of rat or weasel.
One morning quite early, our Papa whose window was open, heard a very
strange sort of chattering from poor Jacky, so unlike his usual
language, that he got up and looked out of his window. Seeing nothing,
and hearing no more, he went to bed again; but when Mamma went as usual
to give Jacky his breakfast, no call of pleasure came from the bush, no
Jacky was there, and he was no where to be seen.
"Then a weasel has taken him," said Papa, when we told him; "the
singular cry he made this morning, was doubtless when the weasel seized
him." And when we searched about the garden, there we found on a grass
bank, at some distance, the remains of our poor pet. The weasel had
bitten him behind the ear, and sucked the blood; his feathers were a
good deal ruffled, but no other bite had been made. We blamed ourselves
much, for not having safely fastened him in a cage every night in the
house. But now we could do nothing but bury the body of poor Jacky.
PRICKER, THE HEDGEHOG.