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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
In "Princess Sukey," Marshall Saunders weaves a captivating narrative that explores themes of identity, social justice, and the resilience of the human spirit. Set against a backdrop of early 20th-century societal norms, the book employs a rich, descriptive literary style that evokes vivid imagery and emotional depth. The prose is characterized by its accessibility, enabling readers of all ages to engage with the moral complexities presented in the tale. Saunders intricately develops her characters, particularly the titular Princess Sukey, showcasing the intersection of privilege and oppression within a captivating adventure that challenges conventional notions of royalty and self-discovery. Marshall Saunders, a Canadian author and social activist, had a profound understanding of the struggles faced by marginalized communities. Her own experiences and advocacy for animal rights and women's suffrage likely fueled her desire to create narratives that inspire compassion and change. Saunders was known for her advocacy of social reform, which profoundly influenced her storytelling, providing depth and authenticity to her characters and their journeys through societal challenges. "Princess Sukey" is a must-read for those interested in literature that transcends mere entertainment, offering rich reflections on compassion, justice, and self-empowerment. Readers will find themselves enchanted by Saunders' ability to combine adventure with social commentary, making this book not only enjoyable but also a profound exploration of what it means to be a true leader in one's community.
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Princess Sukey
Table of Contents
CHAPTER IThe 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:
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!”
CHAPTER IIMrs. 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.
CHAPTER IIIHappy 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.”
