CASSOWARY LOSES HER TEMPER TWICE
"Oh! the troubles of youth, the troubles of youth," I said to myself as
I ran up to the barnyard. "They are as important to these growing
creatures as the troubles of older years are to the grown-ups."
Young Dallas was not with Big Chief now. He was strolling gloomily to
and fro, hands in pockets and occasionally kicking a pebble from his
path.
What had happened? Big Chief was going on with his work whistling
noisily and rudely. He must have done something to insult my young
master. I had never before seen that angry frown on Dallas' pleasant
face.
Presently the four younger children came slowly up and Champ threw the
rowlocks down at Big Chief's feet. "There! Mr. Bully, the next time you
want anything, you go yourself."
Big Chief stared angrily, then stepped forward.
"Would you hammer me?" asked Champ.
Big Chief promptly dropped the hammer, but his hand shot out and
catching Champ by the collar he shook him.
He didn't hurt him. He was merely warning him. I was standing near and
saw it all, but the cross tired little Dovey thought he was hurting her
brother, and giving a squeal she threw herself on Big Chief's back.
As if this had been a signal Sojer caught Big Chief's arm, and little
Big Wig clasped his tiny hands round one of his legs.
It was amusing at first. Big Chief, who of course at heart loved his
sister and brothers and did not want to hurt them, stood struggling with
the four, and to make matters worse at this instant my young master
attempted to take the part of the children.
It is always dangerous to interfere in a purely family row. We ponies
used to notice that if we were having a scrap among ourselves and the
horses stepped in, it always made more trouble than if we were let
alone.
However my dear young master could not be expected to know as much about
quarrelling as a pony of my age, so he gallantly tried to make Big Chief
release Champ as he stood still holding him by the coat collar.
The worst stroke of all came now when Cassowary sent by her mother came
flying up to tell the children that their father was coming.
Excited and repentant, and feeling very tender toward Dallas, she
arrived just when Big Chief in trying to push away this fifth young one
to attack him, had the misfortune to strike Dallas' nose still tender
from Cassowary's beating.
It began to bleed, and Cassowary seeing this flew at her big brother and
picking off his assailants as if they had been little leeches started to
dress him down herself.
I heard afterward that the girl rarely lost complete control of
herself, but when she did she was a perfect little fury.
In the midst of her kicking and scratching, Mr. Macdonald came
sauntering from the stable and interposing his sturdy arms between the
children said, "Bless you, young ones--this is a sight I have never seen
here before."
"It's all his fault," panted Cassowary, glaring at Big Chief; "he's
getting uglier and uglier to the little ones. He's a beast."
"Come! Come!" said the young man soothingly. "Your brother is a fine
lad. These are only growing spasms. He'll get over them. He's head of
the house when your father is away. You should obey him."
Cassowary stamped her foot at him. "You, you Old Countryman," she said
furiously, "with your law of primo--primo----"
"Primogeniture," he said, squinting up his eyes at her angry face.
"What does that mean?" whispered Barklo to me.
"Rule of the first-born," I said, "an Old Country idea."
"Cassowary looks as old as her brother," he said, "and acts older."
Cassowary was spluttering on, "We're Canadians--it's share and share
alike here. The eldest brother isn't going to have everything."
"Easy now, Miss Cassowary," said Mr. Macdonald. "Shake hands and make
up."
But she wouldn't shake hands and make up, and the young man, hearing
Mr. Talker calling him, swung on his heel and went to the stable.
Cassowary stepped up to her brother and said in a low ugly voice,
"There's one in this family adopted--I heard the parents say so one day
when they didn't know I was near. I'm sure it's you. You don't act like
us and we all hate you."
This was such an alarming statement that we all gasped--all that were
there. The four younger children seeing their father coming in the green
canoe had run down to the house.
My young master, who was nursing his poor sore nose, dropped the hand
holding the handkerchief. Big Chief was staring speechlessly at his
sister and Dallas stammered, "Cassowary, d-don't jest. You're tormenting
Big Chief. Say it's a joke."
Cassowary was not joking, I saw that, and she was no longer upset. She
was mistress of herself now and very cool and collected.
"Can't you see that you don't look like us?" she went on. "Look at your
round head, your stubby fingers, your small eyes. We have long heads,
slender hands, and large eyes."
The bewildered Big Chief turned his hands over and stared at them. Then
he put one of them up to his face.
"Oh! girl, girl, have mercy," I felt like pleading, but alas! I could
not speak. I pushed myself forward a bit, but she, always such a lover
of animals, gave me a calm slap that sent me back pretty quick from the
circle of human beings. I must just sorrowfully submit.
The grief in Big Chief's eyes was dreadful. Scales seemed to have
fallen from them. It did not occur to him evidently to doubt her
statement. Oh! how could she make him suffer so, even if what she said
were true.
He turned and stared at Dallas as if begging him to help him.
"Cousin Cassowary," said Dallas, "you have always played the game as I
have noticed you. On your word of honor, do you really believe that your
brother is adopted?"
Such a strange cold unloving light glowed in her eyes. "On my word of
honor," she said sulkily. "I have believed it for a long time, but I
would never have said it if he had not been so disagreeable lately to
the rest of us."
Alas! poor laddie, he had brought this trouble on himself, and Dallas
turned to him in deep compassion. He longed to say or do something to
comfort him, but how could he manage with a nose that would not behave
itself. However after a few minutes of dreadful silence, he stepped
close to Cassowary, and holding his handkerchief pressed close against
his face, spoke in a loving indistinct way.
"Dear Cassowary, Big Chief was not hurting the children. They all flew
at him. I see now that it would have been better for me not to have
interfered."
Cassowary turned to him. "Big Chief has been perfectly nasty to you. Not
one good word have you had from him since you came. You are better
looking, better behaved, and you would make a better brother than Big
Chief. I wish you were my elder brother. If he runs away and hides his
disgrace as he should, for any day he could be turned out in the cold
world, you, as our cousin, could take his place."
Was the girl bewitched? Dallas was so shocked that for a moment he could
not speak. Then he took Cassowary by the shoulder. "Cousin--you don't
know what you're talking about. It's awful not to have a mother and a
father. Don't take away your family from your adopted brother. Big Chief
is all right--look at him," and he seized her hand as if to lead her to
him.
She pulled it from him, and he said sadly, "Our good kind Cassowary has
gone away. We shall have to wait till she comes back."
"She will never come back," said Cassowary coldly over her shoulder as
she started to walk to the house. "I am grown up now. I have had so much
trouble lately."
Big Chief sat with terrified eyes fixed on her retreating back, and when
she was out of sight he got up and staggered to Dallas as if to say,
"Don't you too leave me."
"Come on in out of sight," said my young master pityingly, and he led
the boy to my stall.
They sat down on a box, and with his arm thrown over Big Chief's
shoulder Dallas told wonderful stories he had heard of kind people
adopting children and thinking as much of them as if they were their
own.
His talk floated to me as I stood in the doorway. I don't think the
suffering boy heard a word he said, and when presently a voice was
heard---- "Dallas, Big Chief--where are you?" the boy exclaimed, "It's
Dad--I can't meet him. You go, Dallas--I'll hide."
By this time I had sauntered into my stall and was pretending to lick my
revolving salt cake.
Big Chief darted in and hid behind me, and presently we two were all
alone in the stable.
I had seen boys suffer but never like this, and in my pony mind I could
not help comparing this lad with my young master, who in like
circumstances would not have sorrowed without hope.
My master was spiritual and refined. This boy was of the earth earthy. I
saw he had valued most his proud position as the eldest son of a rich
man--now everything was swept from him. He knew what adopted children
usually were--foundlings from the street. Probably he was a boy without
a name, without a family, and these kind persons had adopted him and
treated him with such kindness that it had spoiled him and he had in his
pride turned the children of his benefactors into such active enemies
that, as Cassowary said, they all hated him.
How did I know what was going through his mind?
By his disjointed sentences and suffering exclamations. He grovelled in
a corner on my bedding, his hot face in his hands.
How I longed to comfort him, but I could do nothing, for when I put my
head down to him he pushed it away.
What a pity that he was not more of a man! His trouble was serious, but
it was not hopeless, and at last to my joy he got up, straightened his
clothing, and going to a small looking glass on a post arranged his tie,
then dipping his handkerchief in the running water in my stall mopped
his flushed and swollen face with it.
Then he came back and stared at me strangely. "I can't stand it--I shall
run away. Shall I take this fellow or my own?---- My own," he repeated.
"Oh! my heart," and he laid his head on his arm and sobbed like a baby.
"I have nothing--I own nothing--I am a nobody."
Finally there was another call, "First-born, First-born--where are you?"
He trembled from head to foot. That was his father's very choicest pet
name for him, bestowed only in moments of great affection. Springing to
the harness-room, he hid himself in a closet while I paced slowly out
and met Mr. Devering, who greeted me kindly and said, "What have you
done with my lad, Bonnie Prince? They said he was with you."
I saw in a flash that Cassowary had either lied or was mistaken. No man
could look like that when he spoke of a boy that was not his own. Oh!
how could this boy doubt his father? However I could not honourably lead
the way to the spot where the unhappy lad was hiding, so I stepped out
beside Mr. Devering and went with him down to the house where I took my
usual station under the lilacs, my ears turned forward to catch all that
was going on.
The family was having afternoon tea in honour of Mr. Devering's
arrival, and a table laden with cakes, bread and jam and hot muffins was
set out on the veranda. Mrs. Devering was pouring tea and Champ and Mr.
Macdonald passed the cups.
At first they talked about the poachers, and then Mrs. Devering, with
the children hanging on her words, told her husband all about Bolshy's
midnight visit.
When anyone told Mr. Devering of anything wrong that had been done, this
good man never showed temper. He always said, "Why did So-and-So do this
naughty thing, and what can we do to help him?"
In case of the poachers, he had been for punishment. In the case of
Bolshy, he said, "Our Russian friend is in the melting-pot, thanks to
Denty and Dallas. Now what can the rest of us do to keep the home fires
burning?"
The family discussed a number of plans, and it was Mrs. Devering who
finally said, "He is a stranger in a strange land. Let us do something
to remind him of home."
"Good!" said her husband. "Now, Jock, my lad, your turn."
"Show your Russian pictures in the school-house," said the young man,
grinning cheerfully over his delicious cup of tea.
"Fine!" exclaimed Mr. Devering. "Now, children," and he turned to the
younger ones.
Cassowary, who was eating a piece of sponge cake with the calm air of a
saint who feels a halo round her head, said sweetly, "If I were a girl
alone in Russia, I should think of my dear home and my loving mother,
also my religion," and she rolled her eyes piously in the direction of
the attractive white chapel up the road built for the settlement by Mrs.
Devering's mother.
"Oh! you naughty girl," I wanted to whinny, while her father said
joyfully, "Right you are, girlie. We'll practise some Russian chants and
have a men's chorus behind a screen as they have in the Greek
Church--but tell me everyone, where is my boy?" and he looked restlessly
about.
Cassowary got up in a leisurely way and said, "I will get him. I think
he has a toothache."
"Well! if you are not a masterpiece," I thought to myself, "and who is
the story-teller now?" and I walked after her as she sauntered toward
the stable.
"Prince Fetlar," she said flicking me gently in the face with her
handkerchief, "seems to me you take a great interest in the personal
affairs of this family. Go right back to your lilacs and don't forget
that you are adopted too."
"You young witch!" I thought, as I turned and went confusedly back to
stand in my shrubbery stall.
I don't know what she said to Big Chief, but she came back presently,
stepping lightly beside him.
He was clothed and in his right mind, but both eyes were swollen and his
face was flushed. He agreed with her little lie about his toothache, but
I had a heartache as I saw him throw his arms about his father's neck
and say, "Oh! Dad."
Mr. Devering drew back and stared at him. "Why, First-Born! what
unusual effusion. I do believe you value your parent after all."
Dear man! so good, but so blind just now. The boy thought he was taking
a last farewell of the person he loved better than anyone else.
I was proud of him when he went to sit beside his mother. Never before
had he waited on her so politely, though he ate nothing himself.
The expression in his eyes seemed to puzzle her. I watched her carefully
as she examined him. I have seen a good many mothers and a good many
children and I have seen a few adopted children. There is a difference.
A mother looks at her own child in a peculiar way--a way a man does not.
The father had accepted the explanation of the toothache, the mother
doubted it. The boy could not deceive her. She was too clever in mother
sense.
After the tea table had been taken away, Mr. Devering called Big Chief
to him and began to ask him questions about the ailing tooth.
Mrs. Devering however drew the boy to her. "I think, Daddy," she said,
"that it is more headache than toothache. I am going to put him to bed
and bathe his head."
Big Chief followed her with this same head hanging low.
I stepped along by the veranda until I came to his room. His bed was
near the window. It would not be put out till later.
She made him lie down and seeing he was disinclined to talk, she sat by
him till it was time for the other children to come in to supper.
After supper the children were very quiet, and before they went to bed,
every boy Jack and every girl Jill came to say good-night to their big
brother.
Little Big Wig, who had evidently heard the older ones pitying the sick
one, said as he reached up to kiss him, "We're thorry, boy, we'll not
sthrike you again."
"What's that?" asked Mrs. Devering sharply. "Have you children been
beating your brother?"
"Oh! rubbish," said Big Chief, "it's only the kid's fun. Good-night,
young one," and I heard the sound of a hearty boyish kiss. Alas! poor
lad, it was another farewell.
Cassowary did not kiss him. I heard her calmly wishing him a good sleep
from the doorway.
Then Mr. Devering came, put his boy's bed outside and wishing him
pleasant dreams went with his wife and Mr. Macdonald into the living
room, where the three sang Canadian songs most cheerfully for an hour
before going to bed.
The harmonious sound floated out of the house across the water and also
up to the stables.
How animals love music when not too near them.
I could not stay long in my lilac quarters that night. My head was full
of business and I fairly galloped to the Hackney pony's stall.
He must be told that his young master intended to run away from home
that night, and he must be induced to concoct some plan with me by which
we could keep him from carrying out his rash plan.