Gala-Days [114]
the interests of housekeeping, baby-tending, and the manifold small cares incident upon domestic life. In short, I was launching out upon an entirely new career, setting a new world a-spinning in that small wire cage. Yes, it was a female bird. A good bird? For I could not understand the marvelously low price. Yes 'm, prime. Had eight young ones last year. Eight young ones! I rather caught my breath. I wanted a brood, but I thought three was the regular number, and I must confess I could hardly look with fortitude on such a sudden and enormous accession of responsibility. Besides, the cage was not half large enough. And how could they all bathe? And how could I take proper care of so many? And, dear me, eight young ones! And eight more next year is sixteen. And the grandchildren! And the great-grandchildren! Hills on hills and Alps on Alps! I shall be pecked out of house and home. I walked up the street musingly, and finally concluded not to call on the barber just yet.
It was very well I did so, for just afterwards Cheri's matins and vespers waxed fainter and fainter, and finally ceased altogether. In great anxiety I called in the highest medical science, which announced that he was only shedding his feathers. This opinion was corroborated by numerous little angelic soft fine feathers scattered about in localities that precluded the cat. Cheri is a proud youngster, and I suppose he thought if he must lose his good looks, there was no use in keeping up his voice; therefore he moped and pouted for several months, and would have appeared to very great disadvantage in case I had introduced a stranger to his good graces.
So Cheri is still alone in the world, but when my ship comes home from sea and brings an additional hour to my day, and a few golden eagles to my purse, he is going to have his mate, eight young ones and all, and I shall buy him a new cage, a trifle smaller than Noah's ark, and a cask of canary-seed and a South Sea turtle-shell, and just put them in the cage and let them colonize. If they increase and multiply beyond all possibility of provision, why, I shall by that time, perhaps have become world-encrusted and hard-hearted, and shall turn the cat in upon them for an hour or two, which will no doubt have the effect of at once thinning them down to wieldy proportions.
Sweet little Cheri. My heart smites me to see you chirping there so innocent and affectionate while I sit here plotting treason against you. Bright as is the day and dazzling as the sunlit snow, you turn away from it all, so strong is your craving for sympathy, and bend your tiny head towards me to pour out the fulness of your song.
And what a song it is! All the bloom of his beautiful islands sheds its fragrance there. The hum of his honey-bees roving through beds of spices, the loveliness of dark-eyed maidens treading the wine-press with ruddy feet, the laughter of young boys swinging in the vines and stained with the scented grapes,--all the music that rings through his orange-groves, all the sunshine of the tropics caught in the glow of fruit and flower, in the blue of sky and sea, in the blinding whiteness of the shore and the amethystine evening,--all come quivering over the western wave in the falls of his tuneful voice. You shall hear it while the day is yet dark in the folds of the morning twilight,--a weak, faint, preliminary "whoo! whoo!" uncertain and tentative, then a trill or two of awakened assurance, and then, with a confident, courageous gush and glory of soul, he flings aside all minor considerations, and dashes con amore into the very middle of things. I am not musical, and cannot give you his notes in technical hieroglyphs, but in exact and intelligible lines such as all may understand, whether musical or not, his song is like this,-- and you may rely upon its accuracy, for I wrote it down from his own lips this morning:--
/_`'`______ ....... ^^------^^^ ^^\\^^^-------- / / / ---- ||| ----^^_^/ ^^^ ///\\\ ^^
SIDE-GLANCES AT HARVARD CLASS-DAY
It happened to me once to "assist"
It was very well I did so, for just afterwards Cheri's matins and vespers waxed fainter and fainter, and finally ceased altogether. In great anxiety I called in the highest medical science, which announced that he was only shedding his feathers. This opinion was corroborated by numerous little angelic soft fine feathers scattered about in localities that precluded the cat. Cheri is a proud youngster, and I suppose he thought if he must lose his good looks, there was no use in keeping up his voice; therefore he moped and pouted for several months, and would have appeared to very great disadvantage in case I had introduced a stranger to his good graces.
So Cheri is still alone in the world, but when my ship comes home from sea and brings an additional hour to my day, and a few golden eagles to my purse, he is going to have his mate, eight young ones and all, and I shall buy him a new cage, a trifle smaller than Noah's ark, and a cask of canary-seed and a South Sea turtle-shell, and just put them in the cage and let them colonize. If they increase and multiply beyond all possibility of provision, why, I shall by that time, perhaps have become world-encrusted and hard-hearted, and shall turn the cat in upon them for an hour or two, which will no doubt have the effect of at once thinning them down to wieldy proportions.
Sweet little Cheri. My heart smites me to see you chirping there so innocent and affectionate while I sit here plotting treason against you. Bright as is the day and dazzling as the sunlit snow, you turn away from it all, so strong is your craving for sympathy, and bend your tiny head towards me to pour out the fulness of your song.
And what a song it is! All the bloom of his beautiful islands sheds its fragrance there. The hum of his honey-bees roving through beds of spices, the loveliness of dark-eyed maidens treading the wine-press with ruddy feet, the laughter of young boys swinging in the vines and stained with the scented grapes,--all the music that rings through his orange-groves, all the sunshine of the tropics caught in the glow of fruit and flower, in the blue of sky and sea, in the blinding whiteness of the shore and the amethystine evening,--all come quivering over the western wave in the falls of his tuneful voice. You shall hear it while the day is yet dark in the folds of the morning twilight,--a weak, faint, preliminary "whoo! whoo!" uncertain and tentative, then a trill or two of awakened assurance, and then, with a confident, courageous gush and glory of soul, he flings aside all minor considerations, and dashes con amore into the very middle of things. I am not musical, and cannot give you his notes in technical hieroglyphs, but in exact and intelligible lines such as all may understand, whether musical or not, his song is like this,-- and you may rely upon its accuracy, for I wrote it down from his own lips this morning:--
/_`'`______ ....... ^^------^^^ ^^\\^^^-------- / / / ---- ||| ----^^_^/ ^^^ ///\\\ ^^
SIDE-GLANCES AT HARVARD CLASS-DAY
It happened to me once to "assist"