THE JACKDAW.
One morning, my sister was sitting with Mamma at the dining-roomwindow, when they saw me coming down the garden walk, with my head bentdown, and something perched on my back.
"Look!" said Mamma, "What has your brother got on his back?"
Up started my sister.
"Oh!" cried she, "It is something alive; it is black: what can it be?"
And she darted out to look at my prize.
It was a fine glossy fully-fledged Jackdaw. The gardener, knowing mylove for pets of all kinds, had rescued it from the hands of some boys,who had found a nest of jackdaws, and had presented it to me.
Although it was quite young, it looked like a solemn old man; the crownof its head was becoming very grey; and it put its head on one side,and examined us in such a funny manner, listening with a wise look whenwe spoke, as if considering what we were saying.
The gardener had cut one of his wings pretty close, and the remainingwing was not very large. We set him down in the garden, and watched himfor some time, in order to be certain that he could not fly over thelow wall that separated our garden from the road. And we soon saw thathe could only flutter a few inches from the ground, and hop in a veryawkward sidelong manner; there was no fear of his escaping.
Luckily, there was a large wicker cage, that had once been used for athrush, in the coach-house. We fetched this out, cleaned it, and placedJacky in it on the ground near some shady bushes. We left the dooropen, that he might hop in and out, and always kept a saucer of foodfor him in the cage.
He soon became very tame; would hop on our wrists and let us carry himabout, and liked sitting on our shoulders, as we went about the garden.Near his cage was a large lilac-bush, and he found that he could hopnearly to the top by means of its branches; and he picked out forhimself a nice perch there, in a sort of bower of lilac-leaves andflowers.
Finding this much pleasanter than the cage, he soon deserted thatentirely; and at night, and whenever he was not hopping about thegarden, or playing with us, he was to be found always on the same twigin the lilac bush.
We used to place his saucer of sopped bread, and his saucer of water atthe foot of the bush.
When we passed, he used to shout "Jacky!" and soon began to try otherwords; and tried to imitate all sorts of sounds and noises.
In the heat of summer, when the bed-room windows were all opened atdaylight, we used to hear him practising talking in his bush. He barkedlike the dogs; utterly failed in his attempt to sing like the canaries;mewed like pussy very well, indeed; and then kept up an indescribablekind of chattering, which we called saying his lessons; for we supposedthat he intended it to imitate our repeating of lessons, which he heardevery morning through the dining-room window.
Sometimes we heard more noise than he could possibly make alone; and wesoftly got out of our beds, and peeped through the window to discoverwhat it was about. There must have been six or seven other jackdaws,running round and about his bush, hopping up and down into it;apparently trying how they liked his house, and having all sorts of funand conversation with our Jacky.
Within a few fields of our garden walls, stood the old ruin of a hallor manor-house; it had once, doubtless, been large and handsome;nothing now remained of it but the outer wall, a few mullioned windows,and some remnants of stone-staircases. The walls being very thick andmuch broken, afforded excellent holes and corners for jackdaws'-nests;for owls and such things. Indeed, it was from one of these holes in theruined hall, that Jacky had been taken. And the numerous featheredinhabitants of the "Old Hall," as it was called, having spied our pet,sitting in lonely state in his bower among the lilac leaves, doubtlessthought he would be grateful for a little company, and the society ofhis equals; so kindly used to pay him a visit in the early morning,before children or gardener were likely to interfere.
We were rather afraid that the wild jackdaws might entice away ourJacky, by describing to him their own free life, and the mode ofexistence in the crumbling walls of their home. But when Mamma made usobserve how very awkwardly he hopped about with his cropped wing, andhow utterly impossible it was for him to fly across two or threefields, and to the top of the ruin, we were satisfied that his stay inour garden was compulsory; and we agreed that the "Old Hall" jackdawsmight visit him as much as they pleased. But they never once came atany other time than very early in the morning.
I suppose Jacky thought that he had kept these visits a profound secretfrom us.
As he grew older, he became extremely mischievous. When Mamma was busyin the garden, he used to come down from his tree and follow her aboutfrom one border to another, watching earnestly whatever she was doing;and whilst she tied up the plants, or gathered away the dead leaves andflowers, he used to put his head on one side, and seemed to beconsidering for what purpose this or that was done.
Mamma was planting a quantity of sweet peas, in order to have a secondand late crop, after the first had begun to fade. She planted them incircles, twelve peas in each, and a white marker was stuck in thecentre of each patch. As it was fine warm weather, Mamma expected thatthese peas would very soon appear; but in a few days, when she went tolook at them, she saw that all the white markers had been pulled up andthrown on one side.
So she called to us, "Children! I am afraid you have meddled with myseed markers; for they have all been taken out, and I stuck them firmlyin the ground; some one must have touched them."
We assured Mamma that we were not the delinquents; indeed, we were toofond of all the beautiful flowers to injure them in any way.
When we looked closer, we saw that there was an empty hole in eachplace where Mamma had planted a pea. They had every one been pickedout.
Whilst we were wondering who could have done this, the gardener passed,and Mamma showed him the empty holes, and the markers pulled up; andasked him who he thought likely to have done such a piece of mischief.
"I shouldn't wonder if it war he," said the gardener, pointing toJacky, who, as usual, was close to Mamma, listening attentively to allwe said.
"Jacky, Jacky!" shouted he, making some of his awkward jumps at thesame time, and going close to the ring of little holes, he peeped downthem, with his head on one side, as if to make sure that he had leftnothing at the bottom.
We could not help laughing at the queer old-fashioned manner of thecreature; but, at the same time, it was very annoying for Mamma to loseall the pretty and sweet flowers through Jacky's greediness.
She said she would plant some more immediately; and she sent my sister,with Jacky on her wrist, to the front of the house, with orders to staythere till the planting was finished, so that the mischievous birdmight not watch the whole process, and would not know where the seedswere planted.
I staid to help Mamma; we planted rings of sweet peas in differentplaces from the old ones; and instead of white markers, which mightattract Jacky's notice, we stuck in a great many bramble-sticks, allround every patch, so closely that a much smaller bird than Jacky wouldhave found it difficult to squeeze himself in between the rough pricklytwigs. Then we thought that all was safe, and we let Jacky come back tohis perch.
The next day he had not touched the brambles; but I suppose he hadthought it necessary to do something in the way of gardening; so he hadfetched up, from the farthest end of the kitchen garden, a roll ofbass, or strips of old matting, that was used for tying plants andflowers to sticks. This he had pulled into little shreds, all about thelawn and the flower-beds, and a great deal of time and trouble he musthave spent upon his work. How the gardener did scold! saying, that itwould take the whole afternoon to clear away the litter, and that Jackydid more mischief than he was worth; and so on.
But Jacky was a privileged person, and did pretty much as he liked; soit was of no use to complain about him.
It was most amusing to see how he teased the gardener when mowing wasgoing on; he would watch his opportunity, and when no one chanced to belooking, he would run away with a bit of carpet or piece of oldflannel, that the gardener
used to wipe his scythe; or else he woulddrag away the hone, or sharpening-stone, and hide it under hislilac-bush.
So gardener, finding him a great nuisance on mowing days, told us thathe should certainly mow off Jacky's head or legs some day; for he wouldcome hopping about among the cut grass; and if taken up and landed inhis tree, he would immediately come down again, and thrust himself justin the way.
So for the future, we took care on mowing days to shut up Jacky in thenursery, or in the dining-room, where he used with a rueful countenanceto watch all proceedings through the window, pecking now and then in aspiteful way at the glass.
THE SPARROW-HAWK AND CAT. _Page 45._]
Whilst Jacky was in our possession, we had a sparrow-hawk for a shorttime. Papa brought him home one evening in a paper bag; he was a veryhandsome fellow, with such brilliant eyes, and such a beak! He wasperfectly wild, and bit furiously at any hand that approached him; sowe covered up his head in a pocket-handkerchief, whilst gardenerfastened a small chain round his leg. Then we fixed a short stump inthe grass, not far from Jacky's lilac, and fastened the end of thechain to the stump. So he could run and hop about for a yard or tworound the stump; we intended to keep him there until he became a littletamer, and hoped that the example of his neighbour would teach him goodmanners. But instead of taking Jacky as a pattern, the new comerbullied him in a most dreadful way. We might have saved ourselves thetrouble of chaining him, for he snapped the chain in two with hisstrong beak, and came down from his stump quite at liberty to roamabout. Strange to say, he did not go away altogether, but walked in atthe dining-room window. We were seated at tea, and not knowing that thehawk had liberated himself, we were quite startled at hearing a curiousflapping in the corner of the room, but we soon saw the two brillianteyes, and there sat Mr. Sparrow-hawk, on the top of the book-case. Wetook him out and confined him to his stump again. There he staidquietly all night; but next day we heard Jacky pitying himself in hisbush, and we found him fidgetting about in the top of the lilac, andfearing to come down, because Mr. Sparrow-hawk was walking about at thebottom, and whenever poor Jacky ventured down, he was darted at by thenew comer, and hastily scrambled up the bush again. This was done outof pure love of teasing, for the hawk would not condescend to touchJacky's food, consisting of sopped bread; but yet he would not let thepoor old grey-head come down to eat his own breakfast. Jacky was quitecrest-fallen, and we procured a stronger chain which held Mr.Sparrow-hawk fast on his stump for several days, during which timeJacky regained his equanimity.
But then the chain was burst again, and this time the hawk took tochasing the cats as well as tormenting Jacky. We had two cats, theywere very good friends with Jacky, and used wander about the garden agood deal; quite unconscious of what was in store for them; theycommenced playing about Mr. Sparrow-hawk's stump, when down stepped thegentleman and nipped the tail of the nearest cat quite tightly in hissharp beak, poor pussy shrieked and mewed, and we had to go to herrescue. At last we left off chaining the hawk, as we found that he didnot try to escape, but sat on his stump or else came into the house;and we often were startled by finding him perched on a table, or on thebannisters, but at the same time he would not become tame, and he soterrified and annoyed poor Jacky, that we soon sent him away; andcertainly the cats and Jacky must have rejoiced, when they found thesavage owner of the stump had disappeared. The only sign ofcivilization which Mr. Sparrow-hawk had shown, was one evening, when agentleman who visited us, happened to be playing the flute in thedrawing-room. The hawk never came into the room when any one was there,and had very often heard the piano and singing; but probably thepeculiar sound of the flute had something very pleasing to the bird'sear, for although this room was full of people, he came to the openwindow, hopped in, and gradually approached the flute-player, till heperched himself on the end of the flute. When the music ceased, thehawk, quietly took himself out of the window again, and next day was aswild as ever.
One of Jacky's great pleasures during the summer, was bathing orwashing at the sink in the back kitchen. We always took care that hewas provided with a large saucer of water, which stood beneath hislilac bush, but this did not appear to be sufficient. One day when thecook was pumping water out of the sink-pump, Jacky jumped up, and puthis head under the stream, shouting and fluttering, with expressions ofthe greatest delight; and after this he generally came every day intothe back kitchen, and called and hopped about until cook came andpumped over him. Such a miserable half drowned creature as he looked,with all his feathers sticking close to his body; then he used torepair to the kitchen and sit before the fire, till he became dry.Sometimes he got upon the fender, and when the fire was large, it madehis feathers appear quite to smoke, by so rapidly drawing out thewater. Once he was actually singeing, when the cook snatched him up andput him out of the window, and it was strange that he seemed to likethe roasting at the fire, quite as well as the cold water.
He soon discovered the time that tea was prepared in the kitchen, andregularly came to the window to ask for tea and bread and butter; so asaucer of tea and a piece of bread and butter were placed on thewindow-sill for him, as punctually as the cook's own tea was prepared;and Jacky sipped his tea, and ate his bread and butter like any oldwasherwoman. But whilst sitting at the kitchen window he spied allsorts of things on cook's little work-table that strongly tempted histhieving propensities, and coming cautiously one morning, when the cookwas absent, he pretty well cleared the table; very many journeys in andout must it have cost him, for when the poor cook returned to herkitchen, she began exclaiming. "Who has been meddling with my work andall my things?" and she called to me and my sister, and asked if we hadhidden her work materials to plague her. "No indeed," we said, "we havenot been here this morning at all."
"Well then," said she, "what has become of my thimble, my scissors, andreels of cotton, my work, that I laid upon the table, and there wasalso an account-book of your Mamma's, and a pen; I don't see one ofthem!" We hunted about for the missing articles. The kitchen windowlooked out on a plantation, not far from Jacky's bush. My sister lookedout. "Oh!" cried she, "there is one leaf of your account-book on theborder." "And I declare," exclaimed cook, who had run to the window,"there is one of my new reels twisted round and round yon rose tree; Ido believe it's that mischeevous bird." We were delighted. We bothsprang out of the window--"There's your thimble," I shouted, "full ofwet mould!" "And here are your scissors," cried my sister, "in Jacky'sdrinking saucer! And there is your half-made shirt, hanging on the rosebush beneath the window!" Poor cook could not forbear laughing. "Well,"said she, "he must have been right-down busy to take off all thesethings in about five minutes. Gather up my things for me, like goodbairns." So we ran about picking up the things; the cotton reels wererestored with about half their supply of cotton, as he had twisted themall round about the stems of different plants; the pen was stuck intothe earth, and as for the account-book, the leaves were all about thegarden, some he had even carried down to the cucumber frame, quite atthe other end. But he was such a favourite, that even this sort oftrick was allowed to pass unpunished. He furnished us with muchamusement; and I am now coming to his sad end.
The wall which separated our garden from the road, was very rough andold, full of holes and crumbling mortar. Once or twice, when sitting atthe windows, we had seen a small animal run across the gravel walk; wecould not discern whether it was most like a rat or a weasel, andprobably it came in through one of the holes in the wall. We did thinkof Jacky; but knowing that he always roosted at the top of the lilacbush, we supposed that he was quite out of the reach of rat or weasel.One morning quite early, our Papa whose window was open, heard a verystrange sort of chattering from poor Jacky, so unlike his usuallanguage, that he got up and looked out of his window. Seeing nothing,and hearing no more, he went to bed again; but when Mamma went as usualto give Jacky his breakfast, no call of pleasure came from the bush, noJacky was there, and he was no where to be seen.
"Then a weasel has taken him," said Papa, when we
told him; "thesingular cry he made this morning, was doubtless when the weasel seizedhim." And when we searched about the garden, there we found on a grassbank, at some distance, the remains of our poor pet. The weasel hadbitten him behind the ear, and sucked the blood; his feathers were agood deal ruffled, but no other bite had been made. We blamed ourselvesmuch, for not having safely fastened him in a cage every night in thehouse. But now we could do nothing but bury the body of poor Jacky.