HAPPY TIMES
Ah! that was the beginning of happy times for the princess.
“Grandfather!” said Titus, weakly, “I have been acting a lie, but don’t
punish the bird.” That was one of the first sentences he uttered.
“Hush, hush!” said the Judge, soothingly. “Hush, my boy, your pigeon is
in my study. Go to sleep—there is nothing to worry about.”
Then he sat and looked blissfully and curiously at the tired, closed
eyes. What fancy was this, or, to go deeper, what sympathy, what
affinity was it that drew the first thought of an almost mortally
wounded boy to a member of the bird world? That pigeon was more to him
than anything else, apparently.
“Doctor,” he said in a low voice, getting up and going over to the
white-haired superintendent of the hospital who happened to be at the
other end of the room, “are all lads fond of animals?”
“Almost all healthy, normal ones are, according to my observation,”
replied the doctor.
“What is the philosophy of it?”
“I don’t know,” said the man, frankly. “I can remember my own passion
for animals when I was young, but I have outgrown it. A little girl
loves her doll, a boy his dog. The woman casts aside her doll for her
daughter—”
“And the boy, or the man, has his sons,” whispered the Judge.
The doctor nodded. “The young of any kind of creature is interested in
the young of any other. Sometimes they keep the interest to maturity,
sometimes they don’t.”
“I can understand a boy’s interest in a dog,” murmured the Judge, “but a
pigeon—”
“Is that lad attached to a pigeon?” inquired the doctor, with a sharp
look at the bed.
“Yes, very much so.”
“And is inquiring about it?”
“Yes.”
“Then take good care of it,” said the doctor, “and if it dies don’t let
him know.”
The Judge nodded, and went back to the bed.
The doctor’s advice was repeated at home in the big stone house.
“Didn’t I tell you so!” exclaimed Mrs. Blodgett in huge delight, “didn’t
I tell you so!” and she immediately went downtown and bought a new
basket for the princess, who fell into a most unaristocratic rage when
she was put into it.
“Pigeons is like ca-ca-cats,” remarked Higby, who was watching Mrs.
Blodgett induct the princess into her new home. “They h-h-hate changes.”
“But, darlin’ princess, look at the white ribbons,” said Mrs. Blodgett,
cajolingly, “an’ the pretty German straw. Why, it’s a lovely basket.”
“Rookety cahoo! rookety cahoo!” said the princess, stepping high and
wrathfully shaking her hood.
“Rookety cahoo! or no rookety cahoo!” said Mrs. Blodgett, decidedly,
“you’ve got to have it. No dirty old baskets in the Judge’s study.
You’ve got to be kept as clean as clean. Higby, you clear up that litter
of straw. She aint goin’ to sit on it any more. I’ve got a roll of scrim
to make her cushions. She drags the straw about with her claws all over
the carpet—and we aint goin’ to feed her in here any more. She drops
seeds. We’ll take her in the pantry. I don’t want the Judge to turn her
out of his room. If anything happened to her anywhere else we’d be
blamed.”
“The Judge don’t take n-n-no notice of her,” grumbled Higby.
“Don’t he—that’s all you know. I see him lookin’ at her, an’ weighin’
her actions, an’ sizin’ her up. I’ll bet you he never knew so much about
pigeons afore.”
It was true that the Judge was observing Princess Sukey. He was obliged
to do so, for as soon as Titus was allowed to talk he seemed bewitched
to get on to the subject of his pigeon. How did she look, had she grown
much—there were a few little feathers under her wings that had not
started—had they appeared yet? and the Judge was obliged to answer all
his questions, and if his observations of the pigeon had not been
sufficiently narrow he had to promise to make more.
The days passed by. Young Titus went steadily forward. He never lost a
step. The hospital authorities declared that his recuperative powers
were marvelous, and the Judge, who had painfully feared some hereditary
weakness, silently bowed his head and gave thanks.
One day Mrs. Blodgett went into the Judge’s study, which was a beautiful
room looking south, and having large windows opening on a balcony. She
was in search of the princess, and the pigeon, seeing her coming,
hurried somewhat apprehensively out to this balcony. She had been out of
bounds, and Mrs. Blodgett owned a little switch which she kept hidden
behind one of the bookcases.
The princess was only allowed to sit or stand in her basket, which stood
on a square of oilcloth by the fireplace, to walk directly to the
balcony, or directly back. She must not linger in corners of the room,
or fly up on the bookcases, the tables, or the desk.
Just now she had been loitering under one of the tables, picking at the
flowers in the carpet; therefore, seeing Mrs. Blodgett, she took to the
balcony.
Mrs. Blodgett laughed good-humoredly, “I am not going to whip you
to-day. I am ordered to take you to the hospital to see your young
master, and mind you are a good bird.”
The princess submitted to being caught and put in her basket. Mrs.
Blodgett tied a piece of stout paper firmly over her, then putting the
basket on her arm she went downstairs and out of doors to the street,
where the coachman Roblee was awaiting her with the Judge’s carriage.
The rubber-tired wheels moved softly over the asphalt pavement, but the
princess liked neither the confinement nor the motion, and she was a
frightened-looking bird when she reached the hospital.
Titus did not say much, but his black eyes sparkled when Mrs. Blodgett
put the basket down on his bed.
“W-w-whew!” he said after a time, “isn’t she a beauty—a real princess!”
Sukey cared nothing for his admiration. She was in a strange place, and
raising her beautiful hooded head she gazed apprehensively and miserably
about her.
Not one sound would she utter, and when Titus tried to caress her she
would slip her soft back from under his hand and trot toward Mrs.
Blodgett.
“S-s-she has forgotten me,” said the boy, with a chagrined air.
“Don’t you believe it, Master Titus,” replied Mrs. Blodgett,
consolingly. “She always do act that way when you takes her in a strange
place.”
However, she had forgotten Titus, or she had transferred her affections
to others. That was confirmed when the boy returned home a few weeks
later.
His grandfather had insisted upon his staying in the hospital until he
was quite well, but everything comes to him who waits, and at last the
day arrived when Titus’s belongings were packed. He himself limped out
of his room, and down the long halls and staircases, and entered the
carriage waiting for him.
A nurse went with him, for his grandfather was confined at home with a
slight cold.
When the carriage drove up to the door Titus hobbled up the steps and
greeted the servants, who were all waiting for him.
“H-h-how do you do, everybody?” he called out, cheerily, “H-h-here I am
as good as new, except a scar on my forehead, and one foot a little bit
crooked. W-where’s grandfather?” and he limped upstairs to the Judge’s
study.
[Illustration: “W-w-whew!” he said after a time, “isn’t she a beauty—a
real princess!”]
He was not a demonstrative boy, but on this day he gave his grandfather
a bearish hug; then, as if he were ashamed of so much expansion, he
turned on his heel and said, “Where’s the pigeon?”
His grandfather smiled. “There she is.”
Titus looked around. The princess’s back was toward him; she was very
busy about something, he could not tell what.
He stepped forward and recognized an enormous pincushion, the property
of Mrs. Blodgett. It was stuck full of large, round-headed pins, and the
pigeon was amusing herself by pulling out these pins and throwing them
on her square of oilcloth.
“W-w-what is she doing that for?” asked the boy, in amazement.
“To kill time, I suppose,” replied his grandfather. “It is my proud
privilege to pick up the pins and stick them in the cushion when she has
drawn them all out.”
“W-w-well, I never!” exclaimed Titus, with open mouth. “I never saw a
pigeon play before.” Then he said, “Sukey!”
The pigeon turned round.
“P-p-pretty bird,” he went on.
“O, rookety cahoo!” she said, irritably, and as he continued to pet her
she walked up and down the oilcloth, shaking her head and setting her
hood quivering.
There was a lovely greenish sheen on the red neck feathers, and Titus
exclaimed admiringly, “Y-you beauty!”
Sukey in a rage uttered a series of choking “Rookety cahoos!” then she
flew on the Judge’s shoulder.
Titus was awestruck. “Do you let her do that?” he asked.
“I can’t help it,” said the Judge, sheepishly trying to drive her away.
She resisted him, and rapidly turning would give Titus a wrathful
glance, and would then peck lovingly at the Judge’s ear.
“I’ve spoiled her,” said the Judge, weakly.
Titus sank into a chair.
“Here take her,” said his grandfather, reaching up both hands, seizing
the bird bodily, and depositing her on his grandson’s knee.
The boy held her, and gently stroked her head. Struggling furiously, she
caught hold of his fingers, bit them sharply until he released her, when
she flew to the Judge’s knee, and seemed to be telling him a long story
of insult and injury.
The Judge could not help laughing, and finally Titus laughed too. Then
he said, “W-w-well, I’ve lost my pigeon.”
“Never mind,” said his grandfather, “you shall have some others for
yourself. I spoke to a carpenter the other day about making a loft up at
the stable for you.”
Titus gave his grandfather a queer look. Then after a long silence he
said, strangely, “Y-you don’t mean it?”
“But I do.”
The boy was overcome, and turning round in his chair he laid his head on
his arm. To have pigeons—to have a loft like Charlie Brown’s—to see his
very own birds strutting about in it, to buy and sell and bargain in the
way so dear to boyish hearts.
“Grandfather,” he said after a time, and now he was so much moved that
he did not stutter, “I’m not just the same as when I went into the
hospital.”
“Indeed!” said his grandfather, kindly.
“No, sir. I thought,” and he pointed a finger at the princess, “that I’d
raise and sell her, but now I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“I will tell you,” said his grandfather, very kindly and very seriously,
“your hard lesson has taught you that a boy is not all legs, stomach,
and brain. He has also a heart.”