[Illustration: PRINCESS SUKEY.]
Princess Sukey
THE STORY OF A PIGEON AND HER HUMAN FRIENDS
By
MARSHALL SAUNDERS
“_Despite neither cats, birds, dogs, nor any member of the animal
kingdom, for are not all created beings little brothers of the earth,
the air, and the sea?_”
[Illustration]
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM
Copyright, 1905, by
EATON & MAINS.
I DEDICATE THIS STORY TO ONE WHO HAS SHOWN A KIND INTEREST IN EVERY
LIVING CREATURE ON MY FARM—TO MY DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW, CLARENCE KING
MOORE, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
MARSHALL SAUNDERS
MEADOW BROOK FARM
JANUARY 26, 1905
LIST OF CHAPTERS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PIGEON PRINCESS 1
II. MRS. BLODGETT’S OPINION 15
III. HAPPY TIMES 28
IV. THE JUDGE’S VOW 36
V. A SURPRISE FOR THE JUDGE 58
VI. IN THE PIGEON LOFT 74
VII. BIRDS OF HEAVEN 91
VIII. TO ADOPT OR NOT TO ADOPT 98
IX. ANOTHER SURPRISE 110
X. THE ENGLISH BOY 124
XI. DECEIT AND FORGIVENESS 142
XII. THE YELLOW SPOTTED DOG 155
XIII. HIGBY AND THE OWLS 163
XIV. A CALL FROM AIRY 177
XV. A DRIVE WITH THE JUDGE 192
XVI. THE SPOTTED DOG AGAIN 203
XVII. TITUS AS A PHILANTHROPIST 210
XVIII. AIRY’S SECOND CALL ON THE JUDGE 219
XIX. DALLAS TAKES A HAND AT MANAGEMENT 226
XX. THE CAT MAN AND THE JUDGE’S FAMILY 235
XXI. MAFFERTY UNFOLDS A PLOT 248
XXII. THE JUDGE GETS A SHOCK 262
XXIII. MRS. EVEREST BEGINS TO EXPLAIN 275
XXIV. THE EXPLANATION CONTINUED 286
XXV. VISITORS FOR THE JUDGE 299
XXVI. THE ONLY SON OF A WIDOW 308
XXVII. MR. HITTAKER CALLS ON THE JUDGE 324
XXVIII. THE JUDGE REVIEWS HIS FAMILY 330
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PRINCESS SUKEY Frontispiece
“W-w-whew!” he said after a time, “isn’t she a beauty—a
real princess!” Facing page 32
“Go tell the servants that she is found,” said the
Judge to Titus Facing page 91
“In the middle of the hall stood the grinning colored
boy and the ugly yellow spotted dog” Facing page 204
“Why are you dressed like a little boy?” I asked. Facing page 292
PRINCESS SUKEY
CHAPTER I
THE PIGEON PRINCESS
Dear little Princess Sukey sitting by the fire—pretty little pigeon—of
what is she thinking as she dreamily eyes the blazing wood? If a pigeon
could review its past life, what she has of bird mind would be running
back over the series of adventures that she had ere she established
herself in this well ordered household.
Has she any mentality of her own, or are all pigeons stupid as has been
said? Listen to her story, and judge for yourself.
To begin with—she is not a common street pigeon like those who are
looking in the window, and who are probably envying her the silk cushion
on which she sits, her china bath, her lump of rock salt, and her box of
seeds. For it is a bitterly cold day. The wind is blowing fiercely, the
thermometer is away below zero, and the ground is covered with snow. In
summer these same street pigeons seem to be laughing at the pigeon
princess on account of the abnormal life that she leads, but just now
they certainly would change places with her.
The princess is a Jacobin—a thoroughbred, with a handsome hood that
nearly hides her head, a fine mane and chain, and her colors are red and
white.
Her parents were beauties—show birds with perfect points, and they were
owned by a young pigeon fancier of the small city of Riverport, Maine.
The lad’s name was Charlie Brown, and he had a friend called Titus
Sancroft, or, more familiarly, “Stuttering Tite,” from an unfortunate
habit that he had formed of catching his breath at the beginning of
nearly every sentence he uttered.
Now, young Titus walked most opportunely into Charlie’s pigeon loft just
a day after Princess Sukey had been hatched.
Just before he came in the clock struck four. A male pigeon always helps
the female in the work of incubation, and bringing up the young ones.
About ten o’clock every morning the mother pigeon leaves her eggs, goes
to get something to eat, and walks about the loft with the other
pigeons—a pigeon rarely plays; even young ones are phlegmatic. As she
comes off her nest the male pigeon goes on and sits there till four in
the afternoon. Then the female returns for the night.
Well, the young princess was a sickly pigeon. There had been two sickly
pigeons, for usually two eggs are laid at a time. One had died, and the
father Jacobin, thinking that the young Sukey was also going to die,
took her in his beak, lifted her from the nest, and gently deposited her
on the floor at the other end of the loft.
There is little sentiment among birds. They believe in the survival of
the fittest, and the weak are calmly taken from the nest.
The young pigeon was not desperately ill. However, blind and naked as
she was, she could not have survived long, away from the warmth of the
nest, unless this boy Titus had discovered her.
“H-h-hello, Charlie,” he stuttered, “here’s a squab out of the nest.”
Charlie took the bird by the legs.
“W-w-what are you going to do?” asked Titus.
“Strike its head against the wall.”
Titus did not approve of this.
“Wh-why don’t you put it back in the nest?” he asked, excitedly.
“No good—once the old ones put it out they won’t look at it.”
“C-c-can’t you feed it?”
“Too much trouble. I did have some birds that would feed young ones—two
fine old feeders, but I sold them.”
Titus had a mercenary little soul. “A-a pity to throw away good money,”
he said, looking at the pigeon. “I-I should think you could worry some
food down its throat yourself.”
“I could, but it’s an awful bother. I’ve tried it. This is a sick thing
anyway. It will be dead in five minutes. See how it’s gasping.”
“B-b-bet you my jackknife it won’t die,” replied Titus.
So they waited five minutes, and, as good fortune would have it, the
future princess gasped them out, and Charlie laid her in Titus’s palm.
“The squab is yours.”
“B-b-blest if I know what to do with it,” remarked Titus, turning the
pigeon over in his hands.
Charlie smiled mischievously. “I guess your grandfather will give you a
time if he finds out.”
“H-h-he shan’t find out,” said Titus.
“It’s mean that you can’t have pigeons or something,” observed Charlie.
“All the fellows have. Why don’t you make tracks for another
grandfather?”
Titus grinned. His grandfather was a great trial to him, but it was only
in one respect. In other ways he was a model grandfather.
“Hope it will live,” said Charlie, generously. “Tuck some food down its
throat—some feed one way, some another—and mix some sweet oil in it.
I’ve heard that’s good when you take them from the parents.”
Titus stood a minute longer; then seeing that the pigeon was near her
end, and that Charlie was unconcernedly going on with his work of
feeding and watering the other pigeons, he scampered home.
Titus lived with his grandfather, Judge Sancroft, and Judge Sancroft
possessed a somewhat foolish and provoking but most devoted old family
servant man called Higby.
Titus ran all about the house looking for this man. He was really
forbidden to talk to him unless he was positively forced to do so. The
Judge had commanded that Titus should only request a service from Higby,
and thank him for one rendered. There was to be no conversation, for old
Higby stammered terribly, and the Judge feared that it was from him
Titus had caught the tiresome habit.
Finally the boy found the man in the attic superintending some painters.
“S-s-see what I’ve got, Higby,” he said, opening his palms, where he was
keeping the pigeon warm.
“A s-s-squab,” said Higby, “a-a-and and an ugly w-w-worm of a thing it
is.”
“W-w-what shall I do with it?” asked Titus.
“W-w-wring it’s neck, young sir,” said Higby, who was much worried by
the painters. “’Tis a s-s-sad world for m-m-man, woman, or pigeon.”
“B-but it’s worth money,” said Titus. “It’s a Jacobin—the parents cost
twenty dollars.”
Higby looked at it again. Neither he nor the lad was much animated by
sentiment in saving the life of a bird. Then he felt the pigeon’s crop.
“Th-th-there ain’t nothin’ in there, Master Titus. You’ve got to
fe-fe-feed it mighty quick.”
“Y-you come help me,” said the boy.
“I ca-ca-can’t leave these workmen.”
“I-if you don’t,” replied Titus, “I’ll tell my grandfather that you seek
me out and talk to me. Then he’ll discharge you.”
Higby flew into a rage. As he choked and spluttered and stammered he
stepped backward. That was his way when wrestling for words, and when he
at last got his words he struck one foot sharply on the floor.
Young Titus, on the contrary, always stopped stuttering when he became
deeply moved about anything, but in his excitement he had formed the
habit of stepping forward. So if he were talking to Higby there was at
the same time advance and retreat.
The painters were nearly killing themselves laughing, and when Higby
discovered this he shuffled downstairs after the boy.
Titus led the way to the kitchen. “Mrs. Blodgett,” he called to the
housekeeper, who was directing the maids, “please make me some warm feed
for this pigeon.”
The housekeeper stared at the bird. “O, law! what a nasty little thing!”
By this time the future little princess was nearly dead, and Titus in
dismay called, “Hurry up.”
“Master Titus,” she replied, snappishly, “the girls are preparing
dinner. You’ll have to wait.”
“I can’t wait,” returned the boy, angrily, and he began to step forward.
“Don’t you see the bird’s dying? Higby, you talk to her.”
Titus’s eyes were flaming, and Higby, who was at heart a coward, and
terrified of anyone in a real rage, subdued his own disturbed feelings,
and in a wheedling voice asked Mrs. Blodgett for just a little
“ro-ro-rolled oats,” with boiling water poured on.
Mrs. Blodgett frowned, and grumbled out something about having men and
boys in the kitchen at mealtimes. However, she drew out her keys and
went to the storeroom, and in a few minutes Titus and Higby were in a
corner of the kitchen with a cup of soft food before them, but with
nothing but their clumsy fingers to put it in the pigeon’s small beak.
The young bird smelt and felt the food, and nearly wriggled out of
Titus’s grasp in trying to get it.
“T-t-this won’t do,” exclaimed the boy, when she jabbed her beak against
his hand, “w-w-we’ve got to have a feather or a stick.”
Mrs. Blodgett gave them some turkey feathers and some toothpicks, and
between them they managed to worry a little food into the pigeon’s beak.
“You ought to h-h-have a syringe,” said Higby, “the old birds fe-fe-feed
their young ones by putting their b-b-beaks crosswise in their mouths to
pu-pu-pump the food down.”
“I-I know, I’ve seen them,” replied Titus. “You just run along to the
drug store and get me one.”
Higby had to go, and by putting a rubber tube in the pigeon’s beak they
managed to feed her pretty well.
When her crop was quite round and full Titus called for a basket and
cotton wool, and put her behind the kitchen stove.
“That basket is mortally in the way,” said Mrs. Blodgett, fretfully; “it
is just in the place where we put our plates to warm.”
“B-b-blodgieblossom,” said the boy, cajolingly, thrusting his arm
through hers, “it’s for your boy.”
The housekeeper gave in. When young Titus called her “Blodgieblossom,”
and said he was her boy, she would do anything for him.
“Mind, don’t any of you knock that basket over,” she said, turning
frowningly to the maids.
Titus was running upstairs, when suddenly he stopped and hurried back.
They all thought he had come to thank them for helping him, but he had
not.
“L-l-look a-here!” he said, sternly, “If I catch any of you prattling to
grandfather that I’ve got a pigeon I’ll make it hot for you.”
They all grinned at each other. The Judge was a good man, but he was
rather severe with his grandson when he deceived him.
The Judge did not find out. He never entered the kitchen, and the young
pigeon grew and thrived, but not behind the stove on the plate-warmer,
for Titus, finding that her little body was almost like a furnace
itself, appropriated a corner of one of the big kitchen tables for her
basket.
Young Titus and old Higby fed her several times a day. One had to hold
her, while the other pushed the food down her throat, and cross enough
the old servant man was when Titus would call out, “T-t-the goose hangs
high.”
Titus did not dare to say, “It is feeding time for the pigeon, Higby,”
for the Judge might have heard, and Titus feared that he would be
exceedingly annoyed if he found out that a bird was being kept in his
house.
It was really curious that such a dislike for the lower creation should
have been imputed to a really benevolent and kind-hearted man like Judge
Sancroft. True, he did not care particularly for animals. He had been
brought up in a city, and he had never had any animals about him but
horses and cows. He was not actively fond of them, but he always saw
that they were well cared for. None of his children had been fond of
animals. Certainly he was not the kind of man to have said, “No,” if any
of his young sons or daughters had come to him years ago and said,
“Father, I want a dog or a cat.”
However, his own children were all dead, and the opinion had
strengthened with years that the Judge did not care for dumb creatures.
Titus did not know that his grandfather would have listened with dismay
to anyone who said to him, “Sir, you have a young grandson under your
roof who is pining for pets such as other boys have, and he is afraid to
ask you for them.”
The Judge was unmistakably a very good man. His white head, large,
handsome face, and portly frame bore the marks of good temper, sound
judgment, and eminent respectability. It was rather a wonder that he had
not made himself known as a philanthropist. However, he had in early
life been devoted to his profession, then he had had much trouble and
bereavement, and had traveled extensively, and then his health had
partly broken down, and he had resigned his judgeship, given up most of
the active duties of life, and settled down to a sedentary old age.
But old age did not come. Renewed health did come, and at the time when
our story opens the somewhat bewildered Judge found himself in the
position of a man who sees the map of his life turned upside down in his
hands.
He really had not enough to do. He had made enough money to live on,
really more than enough, but he began to think seriously of opening that
long-closed law office. He was only restrained by a question of dignity.
He had been so long on the bench that he would hate to come down to
office work again—and yet he could not rust out. He sighed sometimes as
he thought of his future—sighed, not knowing what responsibilities
Providence was preparing for him. Probably if he could have foreseen he
would have sighed more heavily. However, the responsibilities brought
also their alleviations with them.
Young Titus was not at all like his grandfather in appearance. The Judge
was a large, rotund, handsome man, always carefully, even exquisitely,
dressed. Titus was slim and dark, loose-jointed and always awry. His
collar was shady, his clothes tumbled. He was not in one single outward
respect like the dignified white-haired man who sat opposite him at the
table. But there was the mysterious tie of blood between them.
Apparently the elderly man and the boy were not at all alike, but there
were points of resemblance. They both felt them, and in their way were
devoted to each other.
The Judge was a much-afflicted man. Wife, sons, daughters, all were
gone, but this one lad, and he often looked at him wistfully. If
anything should happen to this sole grandchild the good old name of
Sancroft would die out.
A day came when it looked as if the family name would go. A terrible
thing happened to young Titus, and his grandfather’s house was wrapped
in gloom. The lad’s unfortunate habit of stuttering was at the root of
the trouble.
The Judge knew perfectly well that any physical or mental peculiarity
about a boy subjects him to an intermittent martyrdom from his fellow
boys, who with respect to teasing are part savages. Therefore he had a
private teacher who wrestled with Titus on the subject of stuttering for
several hours a week. He also was willing that Titus should have all his
lessons at home, but this the boy would not agree to, and the Judge
respected him for it.
Titus always went down the street with his eyes rolling about him. It
was such an irresistible temptation to the boys to imitate him that
usually the air was vocal with mocking-birds.
Fortunately, Titus was exceedingly wiry, and utterly fearless. Otherwise
he would certainly have been cowed or injured long before our story
begins.
He always marched out of school with the other boys, never waited to
walk home in the shadow of a teacher, and if a call of derision reached
him and he could locate the boy, if he had time, he took off his coat,
intrusted it to a friend, and rushed into the fray. The boys in his set
never carried books in the street. They had duplicate copies at home.
On one particular day, which turned out to be the disastrous day for
poor Titus, he had got halfway home with, strange to say, not a single
fight.
It was not a school day but a holiday, and he had been downtown with a
companion. Suddenly, as he strolled along beside him, a teasing voice
rang out:
Stuttering Tite, stuttering Tite,
O, he is a daisy!
Give him time and give him words,
And he’ll make you crazy.
“An S and an S, and a T and a T,
And a stam and a stutter, and don’t you see—”
The boy got no further. His song was so malicious, his manner so
exquisitely provoking, that young Titus, without waiting for a single
preliminary, flew upon him like a whirlwind.
Provoker and the provoked one rolled over and over in the middle of the
street. It was a rainy, muddy morning in the late summer, and in their
dark suits and bedaubed condition they soon had very much the appearance
of two dogs.
So thought a young man who was driving a fast horse and talking to a
lively young girl by his side. One careless glance he gave the supposed
dogs; then, thinking that they would get out of the way, he scarcely
took pains to avoid them.
Needless to say, the dogs made no effort to avoid him. On the contrary,
they rolled right in his path. One terrified shriek he heard from
Titus’s opponent, then there was silence.
The horrified young man sprang from his buggy. One boy was not hurt, he
was only frightened. The other lay with his dark young face turned up to
the sky. There was blood on his hands and his forehead. The horse’s
hoofs had struck him, and the wheels of the buggy had gone over his
legs.
The young man did not lose his head. He asked the uninjured lad for
Titus’s name and address, he put him in the buggy, and requesting a
bystander to notify the Judge he drove rapidly to a hospital, his girl
friend tenderly holding Titus’s injured head.
The succession of troubles that Judge Sancroft had had during his life
had all been of a deliberate kind. His wife and children had all had
long illnesses, and much suffering, so much so that death had come as a
welcome release. He did not remember anything just as sudden as this,
and his chastened and subdued heart died within him. He feared that he
was going to lose his last treasure.
He happened to be in his club when the news came to him, and taking a
carriage he drove at once to the hospital.
What a contrast—from the quiet luxurious rooms of the club, from the
peaceful reading or talking men, to this abode of pain and distress.
The Judge reverently bared his head as he entered the door. “God pity
them!” he murmured, as he walked through the long halls and corridors to
the private room where his young grandson had been carried.
There was a white-capped nurse in the room. The Judge bowed courteously
to her, then he turned to the bed.
Was that Titus—was that his lively, mischievous grandson—that pale,
quiet lad with the bandaged head?
The Judge stretched out both hands and laid them on the lad’s wrists.
“My boy,” he said, piteously, “my boy, don’t you know me?”
“He is quite unconscious, sir,” said the nurse.
“Will he die?” asked the Judge.
“Sir,” she said, protestingly, “the operation has not taken place—only
an examination.”
The Judge sat down by the bed. Bitter, rebellious thoughts, resigned
thoughts, protesting thoughts, chased each other through his mind.
At last he got up and went to the back of the room. “God’s will be
done,” he said, with a great sigh.
The nurse gazed surreptitiously at him. She was very young, and to her
the Judge in his vigorous late middle age, and with his white head,
appeared to be an old man.
“And a good one,” she said to herself. Then she listened.
The Judge was also listening. His senses were unnaturally acute. Before
her he heard the soft footfalls and the whispering at the door. The
hospital attendants had come to take his boy to the operating room.
“I shall wait here,” he said, and with a piteous face he watched the
lifting and taking away of the quiet little body. But when the door
closed he went on his knees by the bed.
“O, Lord, spare my boy—take my life if necessary, but spare his. I am
getting old, but he is young. Spare him, spare him, dear Lord!”