When I was a little girl I lived with my grandmother, and a gay, lively
little grandmother she was. Away back in the family was French blood,
and I am sure that she resembled French old people, who are usually
vivacious and cheerful. On my twelfth birthday I was driving with her
through a thick wood, when we heard in front of us the loud shouting and
laughing of boys.
"Drive on, George," said my grandmother; "let us see what this is all
about."
As soon as he stopped, she sprang nimbly from the phaeton among
half-a-dozen flushed and excited boys who had stones in their hands. Up
in the tall trees above them were dozens of crows, which were cawing in
a loud and distressed manner, and flying restlessly from branch to
branch. A stone thrown by some boy with too true an aim had brought a
fine young crow to the ground.
"Ha--I've got him. Thought I'd bring him down!" yelled a lad,
triumphantly. "Now give it to him, boys."
The stones flew thick and fast at the poor crow. My grandmother screamed
and waved her hands, but the boys would not listen to her until she
rushed to the phaeton, seized the whip, and began smartly slashing those
bad boys about the legs.
"Hi--stop that--you hurt! Here, some of you fellows take the whip from
her!" cried the boys, dancing like wild Indians around my grandmother.
"Cowards!" she said; "if you must fight, why don't you attack something
your own size?"
The boys slunk away, and she picked up the crow. One of its wings was
broken, and its body was badly bruised. She wrapped the poor bleeding
thing in our lap-robe, and told George to drive home.
"Another pet, grandmother?" I asked.
"Yes, Elizabeth," she returned, "if it lives." She had already eight
canaries, some tame snakes, a pair of doves, an old dog, white mice and
rats, and a tortoise.
When we got home, she examined the crow's injuries, then sponged his
body with water, and decided that his wing was so badly broken that it
would have to be amputated. I held his head and feet while she performed
the surgical operation, and he squawked most dismally. When it was over,
she offered him bread and milk, which he did not seem able to eat until
she pushed the food down his throat with her slim little fingers. Then
he opened and closed his beak repeatedly, like a person smacking his
lips.
"He may recover," she said, with delight; "now, where is he to sleep?
Come into the garden, Elizabeth."
Our garden was walled in. There was a large kennel on a grass-plot under
my grandmother's bedroom window, and she stopped in front of it.
"This can be fitted up for the crow, Elizabeth."
"But what about Rover?" I said. "Where will he sleep?"
"Down in the cellar, by the furnace," she said. "He is getting to be
rheumatic, and I owe him a better shelter than this in his old age. I
shall have a window put in at the back, so that the sun can shine in."
For several days the crow sat in the kennel, his wings raised,--the
stump of the broken one was left,--making him look like a person
shrugging his shoulders, and the blood thickening and healing over his
wounds. Three times a day my grandmother dragged him out and pushed some
bread and milk down his throat; and three times a day he kicked and
struggled and clawed at her hands. But it soon became plain that he was
recovering.
One day my grandmother found him trying to feed himself, and she was as
much pleased as a child would have been. The next day he stepped out on
the grass-plot. There he found a fine porcelain bath, that my
grandmother had bought for him. It was full of warm water, and he
stepped into it, flapped his wing with pleasure, and threw the water
over his body.
"He is coming on!" cried my grandmother; "he will be the joy of my life
yet."
[Illustration: "I SAW SECOND COUSIN GEORGE FOLLOWING HIM."]
"What about Second Cousin George?" I asked.
Second Cousin George--we had to call him that to distinguish him from
old George, the coachman--was a relative that lived with us. He was old,
cranky, poor, and a little weak-minded, and if it had not been for my
grandmother he would have been obliged to go to an almshouse. He hated
everything in the world except himself,--pets especially,--and if he had
not been closely watched, I think he would have put an end to some of
the creatures that my grandmother loved.
One day after the crow was able to walk about the garden, I saw Second
Cousin George following him. I could not help laughing, for they were so
much alike. They both were fat and short, and dressed in black. Both put
their feet down in an awkward manner, carried their heads on one side,
and held themselves back as they walked. They had about an equal amount
of sense.
In some respects, though, the crow was a little ahead of Second Cousin
George, and in some respects he was not, for on this occasion Second
Cousin George was making a kind of death-noose for him, and the crow
walked quietly behind the currant-bushes, never suspecting it. I ran for
grandmother, and she slipped quickly out into the garden.
"Second Cousin George, what are you doing?" she said, quietly.
He always looked up at the sky when he didn't know what to say, and as
she spoke, he eyed very earnestly some white clouds that were floating
overhead, and said never a word.
"Were you playing with this cord?" said grandmother, taking it from him.
"What a fine loop you have in it!" She threw it dexterously over his
head. "Oh, I have caught you!" she said, with a little laugh, and began
pulling on the string.
Second Cousin George still stood with his face turned up to the sky, his
cheeks growing redder and redder.
"Why, I am choking you!" said grandmother, before she had really hurt
him; "do let me unfasten it." Then she took the string off his neck and
put it in her pocket. "Crows can feel pain just as men do, Second Cousin
George," she said, and walked away.
Second Cousin George never molested the crow again.
After a few weeks the crow became very tame, and took possession of the
garden. He dug worms from our choicest flower-beds, nipped off the tops
of growing plants, and did them far more damage than Rover the dog. But
my grandmother would not have him checked in anything.
"Poor creature!" she said, sympathetically, "he can never fly again; let
him get what pleasure he can out of life."
I was often sorry for him when the pigeons passed overhead. He would
flap his one long, beautiful wing, and his other poor stump of a thing,
and try to raise himself from the ground, crying, longingly, "Caw! Caw!"
Not being able to fly, he would go quite over the garden in a series of
long hops,--that is, after he learned to guide himself. At first when he
spread his wings to help his jumps, the big wing would swing him around
so that his tail would be where he had expected to find his head.
Many a time have I stood laughing at his awkward attempts to get across
the garden to grandmother, when she went out with some bits of raw meat
for him. She was his favourite, the only one that he would allow to come
near him or to stroke his head.
[Illustration]
He cawed with pleasure whenever he saw her at any of the windows, and
she was the only one that he would answer at all times. I often vainly
called to him, "Hallo, Jim Crow,--hallo!" but the instant grandmother
said, "Good Jim Crow--good Jim!" he screamed in recognition.
He had many skirmishes with the dog over bones. Rover was old and partly
blind, and whenever Jim saw him with a bone he went up softly behind him
and nipped his tail. As Rover always turned and snapped at him, Jim
would seize the bone and run away with it, and Rover would go nosing
blindly about the garden trying to find him. They were very good
friends, however, apart from the bones, and Rover often did good service
in guarding the crow.
[Illustration]
The cats in the neighbourhood of course learned that there was an
injured bird in our garden, and I have seen as many as six at a time
sitting on the top of the wall looking down at him. The instant Jim saw
one he would give a peculiar cry of alarm that he kept for the cats
alone. Rover knew this cry, and springing up would rush toward the wall,
barking angrily, and frightening the cats away, though he never could
have seen them well enough to catch them.
Jim detested not cats alone, but every strange face, every strange
noise, and every strange creature,--boys most of all. If one of them
came into the garden he would run to his kennel in a great fright. Now
this dislike of Jim's for strange noises saved some of my grandmother's
property, and also two people who might otherwise have gone completely
to the bad.
About midnight, one dark November night, my grandmother and I were
sleeping quietly,--she in her big bed, and I in my little one beside
her. The room was a very large one, and our beds were opposite a French
window, which stood partly open, for my grandmother liked to have plenty
of fresh air at night. Under this window was Jim's kennel.
I was having a very pleasant dream, when in the midst of it I heard a
loud, "Caw! Caw!" I woke, and found that my grandmother was turning over
sleepily in bed.
"That's the crow's cat call," she murmured; "but cats could never get
into that kennel."
"Let me get up and see," I said.
"No, child," she replied. Then she reached out her hand, scratched a
match, and lighted the big lamp that stood on the table by her bed.
I winked my eyes,--the room was almost as bright as day, and there,
half-way through the window, was George, our old coachman. His head was
in the room; his feet must have been resting on the kennel, his
expression was confused, and he did not seem to know whether to retreat
or advance.
"Come in, George," said my grandmother, gravely.
He finished crawling through the window, and stood looking dejectedly
down at his stocking feet.
"What does this mean, George?" said my grandmother, ironically. "Are you
having nightmare, and did you think we might wish to go for a drive?"
Old George never liked to be laughed at. He drew himself up. "I'm a
burglar, missus," he said, with dignity.
My grandmother's bright, black eyes twinkled under the lace frills of
her nightcap. "Oho, are you indeed? Then you belong to a dangerous
class,--one to which actions speak louder than words," she said, calmly;
and putting one hand under her pillow, she drew out something that I had
never known she kept there.
I thought at the time it was a tiny, shining revolver, but it really was
a bit of polished water-pipe with a faucet attached; for my grandmother
did not approve of the use of firearms.
"Oh, missus, don't shoot--don't shoot! I ain't fit to die," cried old
George, dropping on his knees.
"I quite agree with you," she said, coolly, laying down her pretended
revolver, "and I am glad you have some rag of a conscience left. Now
tell me who put you up to this. Some woman, I'll warrant you!"
"Yes, missus, it was," he said, shamefacedly, "'twas Polly Jones,--she
that you discharged for impudence. She said that she'd get even with
you, and if I'd take your watch and chain and diamond ring, and some of
your silver, that we'd go to Boston, and she'd--she'd--"
"Well," said grandmother, tranquilly, "she would do what?"
"She said she'd marry me," sheepishly whispered the old man, hanging his
head.
"Marry you indeed, old simpleton!" said my grandmother, dryly. "She'd
get you to Boston, fleece you well, and that's the last you'd see of
her. Where is Miss Polly?"
[Illustration: "'I AIN'T FIT TO DIE,' CRIED OLD GEORGE."]
"In--in the stable," whimpered the old man.
"H'm," said grandmother, "waiting for the plunder, eh? Well, make haste.
My purse is in the upper drawer, my watch you see before you; here is my
diamond ring, and my spoons you have in your pocket."
Old George began to cry, and counted every spoon he had in his pocket
out on the bureau before him, saying one, two, three, four, and so on,
through his tears.
"Stop!" said my grandmother. "Put them back."
The old man looked at her in astonishment. She made him return every
spoon to his pocket. Then she ordered him to hang the watch round his
neck, put the ring on his finger, and the purse in his pocket.
"Take them out to the stable," she said, sternly; "sit and look at them
for the rest of the night. If you want to keep them by eight o'clock in
the morning, do so,--if not, bring them to me. And as for Miss Polly,
send her home the instant you set foot outside there, and tell her from
me that if she doesn't come to see me to-morrow afternoon she may expect
to have the town's officers after her as an accomplice in a burglary.
Now be off, or that crow will alarm the household. Not by the door, old
George, that's the way honest people go out. Oh, George, George, that a
carrion crow should be more faithful to me than you!"
My grandmother lay for some time wide-awake, and I could hear the bed
shaking with her suppressed laughter. Then she would sigh, and murmur,
"Poor, deluded creatures!"
Finally she dropped off to sleep, but I lay awake for the rest of the
night, thinking over what had taken place, and wondering whether Polly
Jones would obey my grandmother.
I was with her the next day when Polly was announced. Grandmother had
been having callers, and was sitting in the drawing-room looking very
quaint and pretty in her black velvet dress and tiny lace cap.
Polly, a bouncing country-girl, came in hanging her head. Grandmother
sat up very straight on the sofa and asked, "Would you like to go to the
penitentiary, Polly Jones?"
"Oh, no, ma'am!" gasped Polly.
"Would you like to come and live with me for awhile?" said my
grandmother.
Now Polly did not want to do this, but she knew that she must fall in
with my grandmother's plans; so she hung her head a little lower and
whispered, "Yes, ma'am."
"Very well, then," my grandmother said, "go and get your things."
The next day my grandmother called to her the cook, the housemaid, and
the small boy that ran errands.
"You have all worked faithfully," she said, "and I am going to give you
a holiday. Here is some money for you, and do not let me see you again
for a month. Polly Jones is going to stay with me."
Polly stayed with us, and worked hard for a month.
"You are a wicked girl," said my grandmother to her, "and you want
discipline. You have been idle, and idleness is the cause of half the
mischief in the world. But I will cure you."
Polly took her lesson very meekly, and when the other maids came home,
grandmother took her on a trip to Boston. There she got a policeman to
take them about and show them how some of the wicked people of the city
lived. Among other places visited was a prison, and when Polly saw young
women like herself behind the bars, she broke down and begged
grandmother to take her home. And that reformed Polly effectually.
As for old George, after that one miserable night in the stable, and his
utter contrition in the morning, he lived only for grandmother, and died
looking lovingly in her face.
Jim the crow ruled the house as well as the garden after his exploit in
waking grandmother that eventful night.
All this happened some years ago. My dear grandmother is dead now, and I
live in her house. Jim missed her terribly when she died, but I tried so
earnestly to cultivate his affections, and to make up his loss to him,
that I think he is really getting to be fond of me.