MRS. BLODGETT’S OPINION
What was becoming of the poor princess all this time, for that station
in life had been assigned her as soon as the delighted Titus noted her
aristocratic manners.
She was now a lively bird of three weeks of age, and though, according
to well bred pigeon ways, she had not yet left her nest she was always
looking about, and quite well aware of what took place around her.
The accident to young Titus had occurred about noon, when he was on his
way home for lunch. It was now seven o’clock in the evening, and
Princess Sukey was inquiringly raising her pretty hooded head from her
basket to stare about her.
Higby and the maids were serving the dinner. Mrs. Blodgett had had a
dreadful fit of hysterics when she heard what had happened to the boy of
the household, and had disappeared, no one knew where.
Higby was whispering the news. The Judge had stayed at the hospital till
dinner time. The doctors said that there was just a bare chance of
Master Titus’s life, but they were afraid of his reason. There had been
injury to the brain.
“It’s powerful sa-sa-sad to see the old man,” he went on.
Higby was much older than the Judge, but still he always called him “the
old man.”
“He sits and ea-ea-eats,” he stammered.
“Surely,” said the young rosy-faced cook, “he aint eatin’ with the boy
’most dyin’.”
“Did I s-s-say he was?” retorted Higby. “He’s p-p-playin’ with his food
just like a ca-ca-cat with a mouse, only he ain’t goin’ to e-e-eat it.”
“He feels bad inside,” said the parlor maid sympathetically. “I know the
feelin’—kind of sick like. I had it when I lost my little brother. Not a
bite of food passed my lips for two days. What’s the matter with that
pigeon?”
The unfortunate little princess was nearly starved. Her crop was quite
empty, and she was experiencing some of the torment that the healthy
young of any kind suffer from acute hunger. Titus always fed her at
noon, and it was now night. Imperiously agitating her long red and white
wings, she made the whistling noise which a young pigeon strives to
attract the attention of its parents.
“Hush, gor-gor-gormandizer,” said Higby, turning fiercely on her. “Is
this a time for st-st-stuffing when y-young master is nearly dead?”
The pigeon understood nothing of what he said about the boy, but she
clearly saw that no food would be forthcoming now, so she uttered a
complaining “Wee! wee!” and squatted down in her basket.
As she did so the kitchen door leading into the back hall was thrown
violently open and Mrs. Blodgett walked in.
She was a short, stout, middle-aged woman, with red cheeks and a skin
that looked as if it were too tight for her fat body. Her clothes, too,
were tight, giving her generally an uncomfortable appearance. The
expression of her face was often fretful. However, she was on the whole
a good sort of woman.
Just now she was greatly excited. She untied her bonnet strings, flung
them back, and said in a loud voice, “I’ve seen him.”
“S-s-seen who?” asked Higby, stopping short with a tray in his hands.
“The boy. Where’s the Judge?”
“Master T-t-titus!” exclaimed Higby, walking backward and striking his
foot.
“Yes—hush—I’ll tell you later. Give me that pigeon.”
Before anyone could reach the princess Mrs. Blodgett had snatched the
basket from one of the kitchen tables, and was walking toward the
stairway leading to the upper part of the house.
Suddenly she turned back. “Where’s the Judge?”
Higby stared at her. Then he said, “I-i-in his study—he ordered
co-co-coffee there. You’re not going to s-s-see him?”
“Why aint I?” she asked, irritably. “Why aint I?”
“I d-d-don’t know,” stammered Higby. “Only you don’t generally call on
him this time of day.”
“Lead the way,” she said, grandly. “Step out.”
Higby stumbled up the steps before her, the dishes rattling as he went.
When he opened the study door Mrs. Blodgett walked in after him.
The Judge was standing before the fireplace in a melancholy attitude,
with his hands behind his back.
He looked at Mrs. Blodgett as she came in, but did not seem surprised.
His servants often came to him with their troubles.
“Well, Mrs. Blodgett,” he said, patiently, when Higby poured out his cup
of coffee and handed it to him.
“I’ve somewhat to say to you, sir,” she replied, with a toss of her
head.
The Judge looked at Higby, who went into the hall, closing the door
reluctantly behind him.
Mrs. Blodgett was struggling with a variety of emotions. At last she
burst out with a remark, “I’ve seen the boy, sir!”
“Have you?” said the Judge, eagerly, and turning he put his coffee cup
on the mantelpiece, as if glad of an excuse to be rid of it.
“Yes, sir, I’ve seen the boy, and he spoke to me.”
“He spoke!” exclaimed the Judge, “but, Mrs. Blodgett, what does this
mean? No one was to be admitted.”
Mrs. Blodgett smiled. She knew that the Judge was too just to condemn
her without a hearing.
“It was this way, sir,” she said, gently putting the pigeon’s basket
down on the table, and taking a handkerchief from her pocket to mop her
flushed face. “It was this way,” and as she spoke she felt herself
getting calm. There was a peaceful, judicial atmosphere in the Judge’s
study, and about the man himself there was something genial and
soothing. “When I heard of that boy’s head run over and smashed, the
heart stood still in my body. Now, if it had been you, sir, or me, or
Higby—but that only bit of young life about the house—it did seem too
awful. ‘I’m goin’ to see him,’ said I. ‘I’m goin’ to see him afore he
dies.’ Bells were ringin’ in my ears, an’ my head was in a kind of fog
like a ship at sea, but I crawled out to the street, I walked to the
hospital. Many’s the hour I paced up and down waitin’ for you to come
out, for I knew you’d stop me if you saw me. When you was out of sight I
hurried to the door—I rung the bell.”
The Judge drew a long breath, and leaned his head slightly forward in
the intensity of his interest.
“‘Could I see the bed where Master Titus lay?’ I asked,” continued Mrs.
Blodgett. “No, I couldn’t. I was prepared for that. But can you stop a
woman when she makes up her mind? No, sir. I sat in the waitin’ room an’
I cried for a solid hour, and then they said I might look in the room
for one minute, if I’d promise not to speak above my breath.
“I promised, and I meant to keep it, but I didn’t. When I walked into
that quiet room, when I looked at him lyin’ so still with them white
cloths on his black head, then, may heaven forgive me, sir, I let a
screech of ‘Master Titus, me darlin’!’
“He opened them impish eyes, sir, he give me a glance. ‘Blodgieblossom,’
says he, ‘feed the pigeon, an’ tell grandfather.’
“He spoke, an’ he went to sleep again, an’ I was hustled out into the
hall, an’ my! didn’t them nurses give me a tongue-lashin’! But I had
heard my boy speak, sir; his mind were there.”
The Judge’s face was disturbed and bewildered.
Mrs. Blodgett was hurrying on, though she kept a keen eye on him.
“So, sir, I says to myself, ‘Go right home, tell the Judge what the boy
says. Tell him that if the Lord in his mercy spared an innocent bird
when it was tumbled out of its nest, maybe he will spare a helpless
boy.’”
The Judge’s face was radiant. “Then there is a pigeon?”
“Indeed there be, sir,” she said, pulling at the princess, who,
perceiving herself in a new environment, had crouched down in her
basket. “Your young grandson’s pet pigeon, hid for fear of you—O, sir,
’tis sad to see him cravin’ dogs an’ cats, an’ havin’ only this
senseless fowl!”
This was an unkind slap at the princess, who, however, took it
good-naturedly, but the Judge looked sharply at Mrs. Blodgett.
“Sir,” she said, in an earnest voice, “I’ve been thinkin’ of the many
years I’ve served you. You’ve been a good, kind master to me, bearin’
with my faults an’ my temper, an’, sir, when I heard of the boy’s mishap
I blamed myself for somethin’ I’ve often thought of doin’, but have
never done.”
The Judge made no remark, but his round, full, honest eyes were bent on
her intently as she went on.
“You couldn’t get me to leave your employ, sir, not unless you chased me
out. There aint a servant ever comes in this house that leaves on
account of you. It’s me, or Higby. An’, sir, likin’ an’ honorin’ you, I
can’t help takin’ an interest in your grandson. There’s a soft spot in
him, spite of his provokin’ ways, an’ many’s the time I’ve shed a tear
over his motherless head. I, bein’ as it were the only woman in the
house—them senseless, gigglin’ girls, an’ you an’ that poor foolish
creature Higby, not countin’. An’ takin’ an interest, I’ve often thought
that boys bein’ naturally fond of live stock, it’s a pity you don’t let
Master Titus have some to potter over. If he had he’d hurry home from
school like Charlie Brown, an’ not spend so much time in loiterin’
around the streets an’ pickin’ up quarrels.”
The Judge contracted his eyebrows.
“Sir,” said the woman, solemnly, “if I’d come to you long ago an’ said,
‘Your young grandson just craves the pets the other boys have,’ you’d
have got him some.”
“Mrs. Blodgett,” said the Judge, kindly, “let the past alone.”
“But, sir, you’d have done it,” she said, tearfully. “You’re that kind
of a man. Young Master Titus has always hid that set of feelin’s from
you. He pretended he didn’t want a pony or a dog. He wanted to please
you. An’, sir, the fear of the extra clutter of work was what kep’ my
mouth shut. Says I, ‘If he has rabbits and fowls I’ll have more work to
do.’ An’ when I heard of what happened this holiday mornin’, when there
was no school to take him out, an’ when he naterally would ’a’ been with
pets if he had had ’em, I said, ‘The Lord has punished me!’”
She was sobbing bitterly now, and the Judge felt his own eyes growing
moist.
“Mrs. Blodgett,” he said, slowly, “we all make mistakes. With shame and
contrition I acknowledge that my life has been full of them. But tears
do not blot out errors. Turn your back on past faults, and go forward in
the new path you have marked out. Do not waste strength in lamentations.
I see that I have done wrong not to find out a natural, wholesome
instinct in my grandson. If the Lord spares him we shall see a different
order of things. Let us say we have done wrong—we will do better in
future.”
The woman looked up in a kind of awe. She was only of medium height. The
Judge stood far above her. He had straightened himself as if to take new
courage. His tall form seemed taller, his eyes were fixed on vacancy.
And this grand, good man, without forgetting or laying aside his
dignity, had before her, a humble servant, clothed himself with
humility. He had done wrong, he said.
“Sir,” she replied, with her woman’s mind rapidly darting to a new
subject, “I’ve heard say that once the biggest lawyer, the chief of all
the lawyers in the Union—”
She hesitated, and bringing back his gaze to her the Judge said, kindly,
“The chief justice of the Supreme Court?”
“Yes, sir, I’ve heard say that he got stuck, and he asked your opinion.
Is that so?”
“Not exactly, Mrs. Blodgett,” he said, smiling slightly and shaking his
head, “not exactly, but—”
He looked at a clock on the wall. He was in trouble, and wished to be
alone, but, like the courteous gentleman he was, did not care to dismiss
her.
However, she understood him. “I ask your pardon, sir,” she said, humbly,
“for takin’ up so much of your valuable time, but I was in sore straits
about this pigeon.”
“Ah! that is the bird, is it?” asked the Judge, stepping forward.
The princess rose up in her beauty. That kind face leaning over her
meant food, and shaking her wings she uttered a pitiful “Wee! wee!”
Mrs. Blodgett was anxiously watching the Judge.
“I take it, sir, as how the lad is thinkin’ of it in his deliriumtries.
He wants you to know about it, an’ have it looked after. The unthinkin’
creature has been brought up near the kitchen range, but now that
precious lamb is worryin’ about it I don’t dare to leave it there.
Suppose the girls should spill gravy on it!”
All this talk was very fine, but in the meantime the princess was dying
of hunger, so in her distress she did what she had never done before.
Leaning over the edge of her basket, she raised one coral claw, held on,
scrambled, then hopped out, and trotted over the writing table toward
the Judge.
“She’s hungry, sir,” said Mrs. Blodgett. “If you like, sir, I’ll bring
her food here.”
The Judge was looking at Sukey with a most peculiar expression. He knew
nothing about birds. How many things he had dipped into apart from his
profession, but never once had he ever felt the slightest curiosity with
regard to the lower creation. Birds and animals existed, but he did not
care to know anything about them. Now, as he looked at the pigeon in the
light of his grandson’s interest, a series of thoughts flashed into his
mind. The creature had the breath of life in its nostrils just as he
had, it was hungry, it could make its wants known. How many other points
of resemblance to human beings had it?
“Why is it doing that?” he asked, when the pretty hooded head was thrust
into his hand, and the pink beak tapped his fingers.
“It’s food, sir, she’s after. Shall I ring for Higby to bring some?”
The Judge was just about to say, “Take it away,” when he reflected that
it was Titus’s bird, and stretching out a hand he rang the bell by the
fireplace.
Higby came hurrying into the room with a precipitation that told he had
not been far away.
“Pigeon food, Higby,” said Mrs. Blodgett, grandly; “some warm water to
drink, and all Master Titus’s syringes and things for feedin’ the fowl.”
Higby disappeared at the wave of her hand, and presently came back with
a box full of things.
“Here,” said Mrs. Blodgett, clearing a place on the Judge’s writing
table, “here.”
Higby put down the things, then he stared at her.
“Take the pigeon,” she said, “hold it in your hands. I’ll fix the food.”
Higby, in surprise, did as she told him, and the Judge, silently
standing beside them, watched with interest.
“Let’s see,” said Mrs. Blodgett, turning over the things in the box,
“there’s nothin’ mixed. We’ll give her millet seed, sand, scraped
cuttlefish, and soaked bread. I’ll mix it,” and, pouring the various
ingredients in a cup, she stirred them as briskly as if she were making
a pudding.
Higby was amazed. He did not suppose that Mrs. Blodgett knew anything
about the pigeon, but she was pretty shrewd, and had always kept one eye
on him and the boy as they took care of the princess.
“No, I don’t want that syringe,” she said, pushing it away when Higby
offered it to her. “To my mind, this bird is too big for soft food. I’ll
make it pills,” and she rolled the bread and seed together. “Now for a
feedin’ stick,” she said, looking around. “I can’t push the food down
that small throat with my fingers.”
Turning her head to and fro, she espied a slender silver penholder on
the writing table. Catching it up, she tore a strip from her
handkerchief, wound it round the tapering end of the penholder, and
pushed the pill into the princess’s beak.
“That pill sticks,” she said, briskly; “I’ll dip the next in water.”
Higby looked at the Judge as if to say, “Isn’t she a wonderful woman,”
and the Judge in a quiet way seemed to return the glance and say, “She
is!”
The poor little princess was delighted to get some food. She flapped her
wings, which had now grown quite large, until she embraced Mrs.
Blodgett’s hand with them. She loved to feel the food slipping down her
throat, and how comfortable was her crop when at last it was quite full,
and Mrs. Blodgett was giving her sips of water from a coffee spoon.
The princess had learned to drink in that way, though it was very hard
for her, as a pigeon, unlike most other birds, keeps its head down while
drinking.
After Mrs. Blodgett had finished feeding the princess she carefully
wiped her beak, and put her back in the basket.
Then in a somewhat hesitating and embarrassed manner she cleaned up some
water drops from the table, and cast scrutinizing glances at the Judge
from under her eyelids.
He did not see her. His mind was wandering. His body was in the room,
but his thoughts were at the hospital with his cruelly injured grandson.
Mrs. Blodgett waved Higby from the room. Then, soberly depositing the
basket on a corner of the hearth rug, she too slipped out.
The princess lay quietly in her basket, just keeping one eye on the
Judge. She was a discreet young pigeon, but then all pigeons are
discreet. They are hatched with serious dispositions. Play rarely enters
into their thoughts. They want to work, to eat, and not to be taken from
their homes, for, next to cats, pigeons love their own locality.
The Judge never looked at the princess, and after standing up to clean
and arrange her feathers, the last thing a well bred pigeon does at
night, she went to sleep.
The poor Judge sank into an easy-chair. Hour after hour he sat buried
there, buried in sorrow. At midnight he got up and went to the telephone
on a desk by the window.
“Give me the City Hospital,” he said, and then he went on: “Judge
Sancroft is speaking. How is my grandson?”
He groaned when he received the message: “Boy remains the same—condition
unchanged.” Then he went back to his easy-chair.
At intervals all through the night he went from his chair to the
telephone, and back again.
His face would light up when he approached the desk. Then as the too
familiar reply came back it would fall, his head would sink on his
breast, his shoulders would droop, and with the step of an old and weary
man he would turn away.
Toward morning, when he painfully dragged himself to the desk, his face
did not light up. He was giving up hope. However, it did light up, and
with an unearthly radiance too, when the answer this time came to him:
“Boy better—has regained consciousness, and is asking for you. Come at
once.”
The Judge sprang up like a boy. He raised his two hands to heaven, “God
be praised—if the boy lives, a double contribution to the poor—another
boy to share his life—an end to my selfishness—if he lives—if he lives,”
and burying his face in his hands the dear old Judge sobbed like a baby.