THE YOUNG TAXIDERMIST.
"What is it, Oscar?" said Mrs. Preston, while an expression of anxiety
settled on her pale face. "Oscar, what has happened?"
"Nothing much, mother," replied the boy. "I am discharged. That's all.
Is dinner ready?"
"O Oscar!" exclaimed his mother.
"It's a fact. Mr. Smith wants to bring down his expenses, and, as I was
the youngest clerk, of course I had to go."
He said nothing about the grocer's refusal to give him the letter of
recommendation for which he had applied. That was his own trouble, and
he would not burden his mother with it.
"Don't look so sober. We have funds enough in the bank to support us
for a few months, and there are fifteen dollars more," he added,
handing out the money he had received from Mr. Smith.
"But you know we were saving that to make the first payment on the
mortgage," said Mrs. Preston anxiously.
"Yes, I know; and perhaps we will use it for that purpose yet. I shall
start out as soon as I get something to eat, and hunt up a situation.
Is dinner ready? I have brought home a good appetite."
And Oscar thought he had. But when he found himself seated at the table
in the cosey little dining room, with a substantial and well-cooked
dinner before him, he discovered that he did not want anything to eat.
He forced down a few mouthfuls, then put on his overcoat, kissed his
mother good-by, and went out.
But where should he go? That was the question. There were but three
grocery stores in town, and he knew that they were supplied with all
the clerks they needed. If the truth must be told, he did not expect to
obtain another situation.
But it would never do, he told himself, to give up without making an
effort; and, besides, he felt much better while he was stirring about
in the open air than he would have felt if he had remained at home and
mourned over his hard luck.
When he reached Main Street, he could not muster up courage enough to
enter a single one of the stores at which he had determined to apply
for work. Who would hire a boy that had been refused a letter of
recommendation by his last employer?
While he was turning this question over in his mind, someone called out:
"Hallo, there! You're just the boy I want to see. Come in here."
Oscar turned, and found that he had been hailed by Mr. Jackson, the
village druggist--a fat, jolly man, who seemed to carry an atmosphere
of cheerfulness with him wherever he went.
He gave the boy's hand a tremendous grip and shake, after which he led
him through the store into the office, pushed him into a chair, and
seated himself in another.
"Well, Oscar," said he, "I haven't seen you for a long time. How does
the world use you?"
"The world uses me well enough," replied Oscar; "but some of the people
in it might treat me a little better if they were so inclined."
"Yes; there are a good many people about us who seem to be of no
earthly use here except to get themselves and others into trouble,"
said the druggist; "and when we meet any of them, the best thing we can
do is to attend to our own business and pay no attention to them."
"But what shall a fellow do when he has no business of his own to
attend to?" asked Oscar.
Mr. Jackson laughed so loudly and heartily that the boy was obliged to
laugh, too.
"I know what you mean by that," said the former. "I heard this morning
that Mr. Smith had discharged you, and if I were in your place, I
should be glad of it. I guess he didn't pay you much."
"No, sir; but the little he did pay me was very acceptable. In fact, I
don't see how I can get on without it. I must find another situation
to-day, if it is a possible thing."
"Well, you might as well give up the idea, for it isn't possible,"
answered the druggist. "I'll warrant that Smith has had half a dozen
applications for your place already. Now, while you are waiting for
something to turn up, why can't you do a little job of work for me? I
want a case of birds, to put in my dining room--something like the one
you sold Parker, only different, you know; that is, different birds and
different groupings--if that's the way to express it."
Oscar straightened up in his chair at once. It was astonishing what a
change these few words made in his feelings.
"I believe Parker paid you forty dollars for that case of his, didn't
he?" continued the druggist. "Well, I'm willing to pay the same price
for one equally as good. How long will it take you to put it up for me?"
"About a week. I have all the birds I need; they are a fine lot, too,
if I do say it myself--but I must make the case, you know."
"All right! Go to work as soon as you please. When it is finished,
take it to my house--Mrs. Jackson will show you where to put it--and
come here for your money. Remember, now, that I want nothing but
game-birds. I don't care for snow-birds and canaries, like those you
put in Parker's case."
"They were not canaries," said Oscar, who could hardly help smiling
at the jolly man's ignorance of natural history. "They were gold
finches--the little fellows you sometimes see picking the seeds out of
thistles."
"Oh!" said Mr. Jackson. "Well, I don't want any of 'em. I want nothing
but game-birds."
"I am sorry to say that I can't fill the order that way," replied
Oscar. "The bottom of the case won't hold all the birds I intend to
give you."
"You needn't put them all on the bottom. Stand them up in a tree, the
way you did Parker's. The wood cock, snipe, and plover are small birds,
and they could go up there as well as not."
It was now Oscar's turn to laugh.
"I can put a grouse in the tree," said he; "but who ever heard of a
snipe or wood-cock in such a situation? Those birds are not perchers or
climbers; they are waders, and live wholly on the ground."
"Oh! ah!" said Mr. Jackson, settling back in his chair with an air
which said that Oscar had not made matters much clearer to him by his
explanation. "But I'll tell you what's a fact," he added, straightening
up again as a bright idea struck him--"I know I have seen quails in
trees."
"So have I; but it was only when they were pursued by some animal, such
as a dog or fox. If I should put any quails in your tree I'd have to
account for their presence there by putting a fox on the bottom of the
case, and he would take up too much room."
"Well, Oscar," said the druggist, after thinking a moment, "I guess
you understand your business better than I do. Fix up the case to suit
yourself, and I shall be satisfied."
Just then the front door opened, and a couple of ladies came in. Mr.
Jackson hurried out to wait upon them, while Oscar, who was in a great
hurry to earn those forty dollars, buttoned his overcoat and left the
store.
His face was fairly radiant with joy, and so completely was he wrapped
up in his own thoughts that he did not see the gentleman who, after
trying in vain to avoid a collision with him, finally seized him by the
arm and held him fast.
"Why, Oscar, I thought it was you!" exclaimed the gentleman. "How do
you do? By the way," he added, without giving the boy a chance to
reply, "have you any more of those horned owls that you stuffed last
winter?"
"No, sir; they are all sold," answered Oscar.
"What did you get apiece for them?"
"Three dollars."
"Well, now, I want one of them to put into a little niche at the head
of my stairway," continued the gentleman. "If you will shoot one for
me, and mount it, I'll give you three dollars for it."
"I am afraid I can't do it, Mr. Shaw. They are very scarce; and those
I shot last winter I found by accident."
"Then get up a little earlier in the morning and hunt a little later at
night, and I'll give you five dollars. If you succeed, bring the bird
around, and your money is ready."
"I'll do my best. Now I'll just tell you what's the truth," said Oscar
to himself, as he pulled his collar up around his ears, and once more
turned his face toward home. "I've got some friends yet. I can make the
first payment on that mortgage, interest and all, and have a little
money left to keep us in fuel and provisions until I can earn more. Two
orders in one day! They came in just at the right time, too. I haven't
had a chance to sell a bird before for six months."
Oscar did not know that the orders he had just received had been
obtained for him that morning through the influence of Mr. Parker.
If he had known it, he would have lost no time in hunting up his
benefactor and thanking him for the interest he took in his welfare.
But attributing his unexpected stroke of fortune to his good luck,
which he believed had not yet wholly deserted him, he walked homeward
with a light heart; and the smile he carried into his mother's presence
was instantly reflected from her own face.
"Yes, I have found work," said he, in reply to her inquiring look.
"I've a chance to make as much money in a week as I could have made in
the store in two months. Mr. Jackson wants a case of birds something
like the one I sold Mr. Parker, and Mr. Shaw wants a horned owl. I
am not certain that I shall be able to fill the last order, for an
owl is a bird you can't find every day; but I shall do my best, for a
five-dollar bill is worth trying for."
Oscar ran upstairs to his room, and when he came down again he was
dressed for work.
Taking a bunch of keys from a nail in the kitchen, he hurried through
the wood-shed and paused in front of the door leading into his workshop.
As he inserted one of the keys into the lock, a loud bay of welcome
arose from the inside, and when he opened the door, Bugle, the finest
fox-hound that had ever been seen about Eaton, crawled out from his
warm bed under the work-bench, and after lazily stretching himself,
jumped up and placed his forepaws on his master's shoulders.
Bugle was a well-trained hunting-dog, and so fond was he of following
his favorite game that his master was obliged to lock him up in the
shop every morning.
The hound would stay about the house in perfect contentment so long as
Oscar was there; but when the latter went to school or to the store,
Bugle would soon grow lonely, and then he would hunt the town over to
find someone with a gun on his shoulder.
If he succeeded in his object, he would stick close to that man's side,
and if the man went to the woods, Bugle would go also, and run foxes
for him with as much zeal and perseverance as he exhibited in working
for his master.
If he could not find anyone who was going hunting, he would start out
alone, and sometimes he would be gone two or three days.
He could not hunt foxes to any advantage by himself, for there was need
for someone to stand on the runways and shoot the game as it passed;
but sometimes he succeeded in digging a hare out of a rotten log in
which it had taken refuge, and he always brought the game home to show
that his day's work had not been thrown away.
Oscar did not like this roving disposition on the part of his favorite,
and, as two or three attempts had been made to steal the hound, he
thought it best to keep him under lock and key.
Oscar's work-shop was a clean, well-lighted apartment, and in it the
boy had spent many a stormy Saturday while he was a student at the high
school; but since he had been employed in the store, he had done but
little work there, for his time was fully occupied from seven in the
morning until nine and sometimes ten o'clock at night.
He was glad to find himself there once more, for he felt as if he were
among friends from whom he had long been separated.
The side of the room opposite the door was occupied by a carpenter's
bench, on which were several specimens of Oscar's handiwork, such as
jointed bass-rods, models of yachts (both sloop- and schooner-rigged),
and also a neat little centre-table, which needed only the staining and
polishing to make it ready to take its place in his mother's sitting
room.
At the lower end of the bench was a curtain, reaching from the ceiling
to the floor. Oscar drew aside this curtain, revealing a little recess
about ten feet square, two sides of which were fitted up with shelves.
At the end opposite the curtain was a wide window, and under it was a
table filled with little boxes, containing glass eyes and an assortment
of tools such as taxidermists use. The shelves were filled with stuffed
birds and animals.
The most prominent object in the collection was a magnificent gray
eagle, which leaned forward on his perch, with his wings half raised,
his neck stretched out, and his eyes fastened upon a plump mallard
standing on one foot in the corner below him, with his bill buried
under his wing, and his eyes closed as if he were fast asleep; and so
life-like did the eagle look that one almost expected to see him leap
from his perch and bear the duck off in his talons.
There were hawks, blue-jays, crows, snow-buntings, grouse, quails,
snipes, cedar-birds, and gold finches upon the shelves; in fact, almost
all the varieties of the feathered creation which were to be found in
the woods about Eaton were here represented. And they were all arranged
with artistic taste, too.
Oscar had carefully studied the habits of every bird and animal he
hunted, and in his collection there was not one that was awkwardly
mounted, or that was placed in a position which the bird or animal
would not have assumed during his life-time.
A red fox, on the lower shelf, was creeping along in a crouching
attitude, evidently meditating an attack upon a wild goose, which stood
a little distance away, engaged in arranging its plumage; a snowy owl
watched with wide and solemn eyes a gray squirrel sitting upon its
haunches and gnawing its way into a hickory-nut, which it held between
its fore-paws; a butcher-bird was engaged in its usual occupation of
impaling an insect upon a thorn; a hawk was about to begin a meal upon
an unfortunate quail it had just captured; a mink had its eyes fastened
upon a hare which was sitting comfortably in its form; a ruffed
grouse--the last object Oscar had mounted--was standing up as straight
as an arrow, evidently watching the boy as he came in.
This is the position the grouse always assumes when it is sitting in a
tree and sees a hunter approaching. It draws itself up so stiffly, and
remains so motionless, that the sportsman often mistakes it for a part
of the limb on which it is sitting, and passes on without trying a shot
at it.
The birds were all mounted on temporary perches, made by nailing two
short pieces of wood together in the form of the letter T, the standard
being set into a block about three inches square, to enable them to
retain an upright position.
They were fastened to the perch by the wires that came down through the
legs and feet, and as the wires extended into the body and assisted
to keep the birds in shape, the positions of the specimens could be
changed in an instant at the will of the taxidermist.
Oscar had killed and mounted every one of them himself, and took no
little pride in showing them to his friends.