"I'm afraid we've made your aunt very cross, Nat, my boy," said Uncle
Joe, rubbing his hands softly, and looking perplexed and troubled. "Do
you think, Nat, that I have been leading you wrong?"
"I hope not, uncle," I said, "and I don't think so, for it has been very
nice out here in the toolshed, and we have enjoyed ourselves so."
"Yes, my boy, we have, very much, indeed, but I'm afraid your aunt never
forgave us for not putting Humpty Dumpty together again."
"But, uncle," I said, "isn't it unreasonable of Aunt Sophia to expect us
to do what all the king's horses and all the king's men could not do?"
He looked at me for a few minutes without speaking, and then he began to
smile very slightly, then a little more and a little more, till, instead
of looking dreadfully serious, his face was as happy as it could be.
Then he began to laugh very heartily, and I laughed too, till the tears
were in our eyes.
"Of--of course it was, Nat," he cried, chuckling and coughing together.
"We couldn't do what all the king's horses and all the king's men didn't
manage, Nat, and--yes, my dear, we're coming."
Uncle Joe jumped up and went out of the tool-house, for my aunt's voice
could be heard telling us to come in.
"Hush!" he whispered, with a finger on his lips. "Make haste in, Nat,
and run up to your room and wash your hands."
I followed him in, and somehow, whenever Doctor Burnett was in the room,
my aunt did not seem so cross, especially as her brother took a good
deal of notice of me, and kept on asking me questions.
I soon found, to my great delight, that he was going to stay with us
till he started for Singapore, a place whose name somehow set me
thinking about Chinese people and Indian rajahs, but that was all; the
rest was to me one great mystery, and I used to lie in bed of a night
and wonder what sort of a place it could be.
Every day our visitor grew less cool and distant in his ways, and at
last my aunt said pettishly:
"Well, really, Richard, it is too bad; this is the third morning this
week you have kept that boy away from school by saying you wanted him.
How do you expect his education to get on?"
"Get on?" said Doctor Burnett; "why, my dear sister, he is learning the
whole time he is with me; I'll be bound to say that he has picked up
more geography since he has been with me than he has all the time he has
been to school."
"I don't know so much about that," said my aunt snappishly.
"Then I do," he said. "Let the boy alone, he is learning a great deal;
and I shall want him more this next week."
"You'd better take him away from school altogether," said my aunt
angrily.
"Well, yes," said the doctor quietly; "as it is so near his holidays, he
may as well stop away the rest of this half."
"Richard!" cried my aunt as I sat there pinching my legs to keep from
looking pleased.
"He will have to work hard at helping me with my collections, which are
on the way here, I find, from a letter received this morning. There
will be a great deal of copying and labelling, and that will improve his
writing, though he does write a fair round hand."
"But it will be neglecting his other studies," cried my aunt.
"But then he will be picking up a good deal of Latin, for I shall
explain to him the meaning of the words as he writes them, and, besides,
telling him as much as I know of natural history and my travels."
"And what is to become of the boy then?" cried my aunt. "I will not
have him turn idler, Richard."
"Well, if you think I have turned idler, Sophy," he said laughing, and
showing his white teeth, "all I can say is, that idling over natural
history and travelling is very hard work."
"But the boy must not run wild as--"
"I did? There, say it out, Sophy," said her brother. "I don't mind, my
dear; some people look upon everything they do not understand as
idling."
"I think I understand what is good for that boy," said my aunt shortly.
"Of course you do," said the doctor, "and you think it will do him good
to help me a bit, Sophy. Come along, Nat, my boy, we are to have the
back-room for the chests, so we must make ready, for they will be here
to-morrow."
"Oh, Doctor Burnett," I cried as soon as we were alone.
"Suppose you call me Uncle Richard for the future, my boy," he said.
"By and by, when we get to know each other better, it will be Uncle
Dick. Why not at once, eh?"
"I--I shouldn't like to call you that, sir," I said.
"Why not?"
"I--I hardly know, sir, only that you seem so clever and to know so
much."
"Then it shall be Uncle Dick at once," he said, laughing merrily; "for
every day that you are with me, Nat, you will be finding out more and
more that I am not so clever as you think."
So from that day it was always Uncle Dick, and as soon as the great
chests arrived we set to work.
I shall never forget those great rough boxes made of foreign wood, nor
the intense interest with which I watched them as they were carried in
upon the backs of the stout railway vanmen and set carefully in the
large back-room.
There were twenty of them altogether, and some were piled upon the
others as if they were building stones, till at last the men's book had
been signed, the money paid for carriage, and Uncle Joe, Uncle Dick, and
I sat there alone staring at the chests and wondering at their
appearance.
For they were battered, and bruised, and chipped away in splinters, so
that they looked very old indeed, though, as my uncle told me, there was
not one there more than five years old, though they might have been
fifty.
Every one had painted upon it in large white letters:
"Dr Burnett, FZS, London," and I wondered what FZS might mean. Then I
noticed that the chests were all numbered, and I was longing intensely
for them to be opened, when Uncle Dick, as I suppose I must call him
now, made me start by crying out:
"Screw-driver!"
I jumped up and ran to Uncle Joe's tool-box for the big screw-driver,
and was back with it in a very short time, Uncle Dick laughing heartily
as he saw my excitement.
"Thank you, Nat, that will do," he said. "It will be nice and handy for
me to-morrow morning."
"Ha--ha--ha!" he laughed directly after, as he saw my blank disappointed
face. "Did you think I was going to open the cases to-day, Nat?"
"I did hope so, sir," I said stoutly.
"Then I will," he cried, "for your being so frank. Now then, which
shall it be?"
"I should begin with number one, sir," I said.
"And so we will, Nat. Nothing like order. Look here, my boy. Here is
my book for cataloguing."
He showed me a large blank book ruled with lines, and on turning it over
I found headings here and there under which the different specimens were
to be placed.
But I could not look much at the book while "our great traveller", as
Uncle Joe used to call him to me, was busy at work with the
screw-driver, taking out the great screws, one after another, and laying
them in a box.
"Now, Nat," he said, "suppose after going through all my trouble I find
that half my specimens are destroyed, what shall I do?"
"I don't know, uncle," I said. "I know what I should do."
"What, my boy?"
"Go and try and find some more."
"A good plan," he said laughing; "and when it means journeying ten or
twelve thousand miles, my boy, to seek for more, it becomes a serious
task."
All this while he was working away at the screws, till they were half
out and loose enough for me to go on turning them with my fingers, and
this, after the first two or three, I did till we came to the last, when
my uncle stopped and pretended that it was in so tight that it would not
turn.
"Let me try, uncle," I cried.
"You? Nonsense! boy. There, I think we shall have to give up for
to-day."
He burst out laughing the next moment at my doleful face, gave the screw
a few rapid twists; and in a few more moments it was out, and he took
hold of the lid.
"Ready?" he exclaimed.
"Yes, quite ready," said Uncle Joe, who was nearly as much excited as I
was myself; and then the lid was lifted and we eagerly looked inside.
There was not much to see, only what looked like another lid, held in
its place by a few stout nails. These were soon drawn out though, the
second lid lifted, and still there was nothing to see but cotton-wool,
which, however, sent out a curious spicy smell, hot and peppery, and
mixed with camphor.
Then the treat began, for Uncle Dick removed a few layers of
cotton-wool, and there were the birds lying closely packed, and so
beautiful in plumage that we--that is, Uncle Joe and I--uttered a cry of
delight.
I had never before seen anything so beautiful, I thought, as the
gorgeous colours of the birds before me, or they seemed to be so fresh
and bright and different to anything I had seen in the museum, Uncle
Dick having taken care, as I afterwards found, to reject any but the
most perfect skins; and these were before me ready to be taken out and
laid carefully upon some boards he had prepared for the purpose, and as
I helped him I kept on asking questions till some people would have been
answered out. Uncle Dick, however, encouraged me to go on questioning
him, and I quickly picked up the names of a good many of the birds.
Now it would be a magnificent macaw all blue and scarlet. Then a
long-tailed paroquet of the most delicate green, and directly after
quite a trayful of the most lovely little birds I had ever seen. They
were about the size of chaffinches for the most part; but while some
were of the richest crimson, others were blue and green and violet, and
a dozen other shades of colour mixed up in the loveliest way.
"Now what are those, Nat?" said my uncle.
"I don't know, sir," I very naturally said.
"What would they be if they were in England and only plain-coloured?"
"Why, I should have said by their beaks, uncle, that they were finches,
and lived on seed."
"Finches they are, Nat, and you are quite right to judge them by their
beaks."
"But I didn't know that there were finches abroad, Uncle Dick," I said.
"Then you know now, my boy, and by degrees you will learn that there are
finches all over the world, and sparrows, and thrushes, and cuckoos, and
larks, and hawks, crows, and all the other birds that you find in
England."
"Why, I thought they were all different, uncle," I said.
"So most people think," he said, as he went on unpacking the birds; "the
difference is that while our British finches are sober coloured, those
of hot countries are brilliant in plumage. So are the crow family and
the thrushes, as you will see, while some of the sparrows and tits are
perfect dandies."
"Why, I thought foreign birds were all parrots and humming-birds, and
things like that."
"Well, we have those birds different abroad, Nat," he replied, "and as I
tell you the principal difference is in the gorgeous plumes."
"But such birds as birds of paradise, uncle?" I said.
"Well, what should you suppose a bird of paradise to be?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Well, should you think it were a finch, Nat?"
"No, uncle," I said at once.
"Well, it isn't a pheasant, is it?"
"Oh no!"
"What then?"
I stood with a tanager in one hand, a lovely manakin in the other,
thinking.
"They couldn't be crows," I said, "because--"
"Because what?"
"I don't know, uncle."
"No, of course you do not, my boy, for crows they really are."
"What! birds of paradise with their lovely buff plumes, uncle?"
"Yes, birds of paradise with their lovely buff and amber plumes, my boy;
they are of the crow family, just as our jays, magpies, and starlings
are. You would be surprised, my boy, when you came to study and
investigate these matters, how few comparatively are the families and
classes to which birds belong, and how so many of the most gorgeous
little fellows are only showily-dressed specimens of the familiar
flutterers you have at home. Look at that one there, just on the top."
"What! that lovely orange and black bird, uncle?" I said, picking up
the one he pointed at, and smoothing its rich plumage.
"Yes, Nat," he said; "what is it?"
Uncle Joe took his pipe from his lips, and looked at it very solemnly.
"'Tisn't a parrot," he said, "because it has not got a hooky beak."
"No, it isn't a parrot, uncle," I exclaimed; "its beak is more like a
starling's."
"If it were a starling, what family would it belong to?"
I stopped to think, and then recollected what he had said a short time
before.
"A crow, uncle."
"Quite right, my boy; but that bird is not one of the crows. Try
again."
"I'm afraid to try, uncle," I said.
"Why, my boy?"
"Because I shall make some silly mistake."
"Then make a mistake, Nat, and we will try to correct it. We learn from
our blunders."
"It looks to me something of the same shape as a thrush or blackbird,
sir," I said.
"And that's what it is, my boy. That bird is an oriole--the orange
oriole; and there is another, the yellow oriole. Both thrushes, Nat,
and out in the East there are plenty more of most beautiful colours,
especially the ground-thrushes. But there is someone come to call us to
feed, I suppose. We must go now."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, "what a pity! we seem to have just begun."
All the same we had been at work for a very long time, so hands were
washed, and we all went in to dinner.