L. Frank Baum (4 page)

"One day she did not return, and after waiting for her nearly two weeks
we sent the bluejay to see what had become of her. Our policeman found
the house, and also found the window of the room open.

"He boldly entered, and discovered Susie and her husband sitting side
by side upon the dried limb, their bodies both stiff and dead. The man
had caught the poor wife at last, and the lovers were reunited in
death.

"Also Policeman Bluejay found his grandfather's mummy in this room, and
the stuffed mummies of many other friends he had known in the forest.
So he was very sorrowful when he returned to us, and from that time we
have feared the heartless men more than ever."

"It's a sad story," sighed Twinkle, "and I've no doubt it is a true
one. But all men are not so bad, I'm sure."

"All men who enter the forest are," answered the oriole, positively.
"For they only come here to murder and destroy those who are helpless
before their power, but have never harmed them in the least. If God
loves the birds, as I am sure He does, why do you suppose He made their
ferocious enemies, the men?"

Twinkle did not reply, but she felt a little ashamed.

"Talking about men," said the cuckoo, in a harsh but not very
unpleasant voice, "reminds me of a funny adventure I once had myself. I
was sitting in my nest one day, at the time when I was quite young,
when suddenly a man appeared before me. You must know that this nest,
which was rather carelessly built by my mother, was in a thick
evergreen tree, and not very high from the ground; so that I found the
man's eyes staring squarely into my own.

"Most of you, my dears, have seen men; but this was the strangest sort
of man you can imagine. There was white hair upon his face, so long
that it hung down to his middle, and over his eyes were round plates
of glass that glittered very curiously. I was so astonished at seeing
the queer creature that I sat still and stared, and this was my
undoing. For suddenly there came a rapid 'whish!' through the air, and
a network of cords fell all around and over me. Then, indeed, I spread
my wings and attempted to fly; but it was too late. I struggled in the
net without avail, and soon gave up the conflict in breathless despair.

"My captor did not intend to kill me, however. Instead, he tried to
soothe my fright, and carried me very gently for many, many miles,
until we came to a village of houses. Here, at the very top of a high
house, the man lived in one little room. It was all littered with tools
and bits of wood, and on a broad shelf were several queer things that
went 'tick-tock! tick-tock!' every minute. I was thrust, gently enough,
into a wooden cage, where I lay upon the bottom more dead than alive
because the ticking things at first scared me dreadfully and I was in
constant terror lest I should be tortured or killed. But the glass-eyed
old man brought me dainty things to eat, and plenty of fresh water to
relieve my thirst, and by the next day my heart had stopped going
pitty-pat and I was calm enough to stand up in my cage and look around
me.

"My white-whiskered captor sat at a bench with his coat off and his
bald head bare, while he worked away busily putting little wheels and
springs together, and fitting them into a case of wood. When one of
them was finished it would sing 'tick-tock! tick-tock!' just like the
other queer things on the shelf, and this constant ticking so
interested me that I raised my head and called:

"'Cuck-oo! cuck-oo!'"

"'That's it!' cried the old man, delightedly. 'That's what I wanted to
hear. It's the real cuckoo at last, and not a bit like those cheap
imitations.'

"I didn't understand at first what he meant, but he worked at his bench
all day, and finally brought to my cage a bird made out of wood, that
was carved and painted to look just as I was. It seemed so natural that
I flapped my wings and called 'cuck-oo' to it, and the man pressed a
little bellows at the bottom of the bird and made it say 'cuck-oo!' in
return. But that cry was so false and unreal that I just shouted with
laughter, and the glass-eyed old man shook his head sadly and said:
'That will never do. That will never do in the world.'

"So all the next day he worked hard trying to make his wooden bird say
'cuck-oo!' in the proper way; and at last it really spoke quite
naturally, so that it startled even me when I heard it. This seemed to
please my captor very much; so he put it inside one of the ticking
things on the shelf, and by-and-by a door opened and the wooden bird
jumped out and cried 'Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo!' and then jumped back
again and the door closed with a snap.

"'Bravo!' cried old white-hair; but I was rather annoyed, for I thought
the wooden bird was impudent in trying to ape the ways of live cuckoos.
I shouted back a challenge to it, but there was no reply. An hour
later, and every hour, it repeated the performance, but jumped behind
the door when I offered to fight it.

"The next day the man was absent from the room, and I had nothing to
eat. So I became angry and uneasy. I scratched away at the wooden bars
of my cage and tried to twist them with my beak, and at last one of
them, to my great joy, came loose, and I was able to squeeze myself out
of the cage.

"But then I was no better off than before, because the windows and the
door of the room were fast shut. I grew more cross and ill-tempered
than before, when I discovered this, and to add to my annoyance that
miserable wooden bird would every once in awhile jump out and yell
'Cuck-oo!' and then bounce back into its house again, without daring to
argue with me.

"This at last made me frantic with rage, and I resolved to be revenged.
The next time the wooden bird made its appearance I new upon it in a
flash and knocked it off the little platform before it had uttered its
cry more than twice. It fell upon the floor and broke one of its wings;
but in an instant I dashed myself upon it and bit and scratched the
impudent thing until there was not a bit of paint left upon it. Its
head came off, too, and so did its legs and the other wing, and before
I was done with it no one ever would have known it was once a clever
imitation of myself. Finding that I was victorious I cried 'Cuck-oo!'
in triumph, and just then the little door of the ticking thing opened
and the platform where the wooden bird had stood came out of it and
remained for a time motionless. I quickly flew up and perched upon it,
and shouted 'Cuck-oo!' again, in great glee. As I did so, to my
amazement the platform on which I stood leaped backward, carrying me
with it, and the next instant the door closed with a snap and I found
myself in darkness.

"Wildly I fluttered my wings; but it was of no use. I was in a prison
much worse than the cage, and so small that I could hardly turn around
in it. I was about to die of terror and despair when I chanced to
remember that at certain times the door would open to push out the bird
and allow it to say 'Cuck-oo!' before it shut again. So, the next time
it opened in this way, I would be able to make my escape.

"Very patiently I waited in the dark little hole, listening to the
steady 'tick-tock!' of the machinery behind me and trying not to be
nervous. After awhile I heard the old man come into the room and
exclaim sorrowfully because his captive cuckoo had escaped from its
cage. He could not imagine what had become of me, and I kept still and
laughed to myself to think how I would presently surprise him.

"It seemed an age before I finally heard the click that opened the door
in front of me. Then the platform on which I sat sprang out, and I
fluttered my wings and yelled 'Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo!' as loud as I could.
The old man was standing right in front of me, his mouth wide open with
astonishment at the wonderfully natural performance of his wooden bird,
as he thought me. He shouted 'Bravo!' again, and clapped his hands; and
at that I flew straight into his face, and clawed his white hair with
all my might, and screamed as loud as I could.

"He screamed, too, being taken by surprise, and tumbled over backward
so that he sat down upon the floor with a loud bump. I flew to the
work-bench, and then the truth dawned upon him that I was not the
wooden bird but the real one.

"'Good gracious!' said he, 'I've left the window open. The rascal will
escape!'

"I glanced at the window and saw that it was indeed wide open. The
sight filled me with triumphant joy. Before the old man could get upon
his feet and reach the window I had perched upon the sill, and with one
parting cry of 'Cuck-oo!' I spread my wings and flew straight into the
air.

"Well, I never went back to enquire if he enjoyed the trick I had
played upon him, but I've laughed many a time when I thought of the old
fellow's comic expression when a real cuckoo instead of a painted one
flew out of his ticking machine."

As the cuckoo ended his tale the other birds joined in a chorus of
shrill laughter; but Chubbins said to them, gravely:

"He was a smart man, though, to make a cuckoo-clock. I saw one myself,
one time, and it was a wonderful thing. The cuckoo told what time it
was every hour."

"Was it made of wood?" asked the bluejay.

"I don't know that," replied the boy-lark; "but of course it wasn't a
real bird."

"It only shows," remarked the bobolink, "how greatly those humans
admire us birds. They make pictures of us, and love to keep us in cages
so they can hear us sing, and they even wear us in their bonnets after
we are dead."

"I think that is a dreadful thing," said the goldfinch, with a shudder.
"But it only proves that men are our greatest enemies."

"Don't forget the women," said Twinkle. "It's the women that wear birds
in their hats."

"Mankind," said Robin Redbreast, gravely, "is the most destructive and
bloodthirsty of all the brute creation. They not only kill for food,
but through vanity and a desire for personal adornment. I have even
heard it said that they kill for amusement, being unable to restrain
their murderous desires. In this they are more cruel than the
serpents."

"There is some excuse for the poor things," observed the bluejay, "for
nature created them dependent upon the animals and birds and fishes.
Having neither fur nor feathers to protect their poor skinny bodies,
they wear clothing made of the fleece of sheep, and skins of seals and
beavers and otters and even the humble muskrats. They cover their feet
and their hands with skins of beasts; they sleep upon the feathers of
birds; their food is the flesh of beasts and birds and fishes. No
created thing is so dependent upon others as man; therefore he is the
greatest destroyer in the world. But he is not alone in his murderous,
despoiling instinct. While you rail at man, my friends, do not forget
that birds are themselves the greatest enemies of birds."

"Nonsense!" cried the magpie, indignantly.

"Perhaps the less you say about this matter the better," declared the
bluejay, swinging his club in a suggestive manner, and looking sharply
at the magpie.

"It's a slander," said the blackbird. "I'm sure you can't accuse
me
of injuring birds in any way."

"If you are all innocent, why are we obliged to have a policeman?"
enquired the little wren, in a nervous voice.

"Tell me," said Twinkle, appealing to the bluejay; "are the big birds
really naughty to the little ones?"

"Why, it is the same with us as it is with men," replied the policeman.
"There are good ones and bad ones among us, and the bad ones have to be
watched. Men destroy us wantonly; other animals and the sly serpents
prey upon us and our eggs for food; but these are open enemies, and we
know how we may best avoid them. Our most dangerous foes are those
bandits of our own race who, instead of protecting their brethren,
steal our eggs and murder our young. They are not always the biggest
birds, by any means, that do these things. The crow family is known to
be treacherous, and the shrike is rightly called the 'butcher-bird,'
but there are many others that we have reason to suspect feed upon
their own race."

"How dreadful!" exclaimed the girl-lark.

The birds all seemed restless and uneasy at this conversation, and
looked upon one another with suspicious glances. But the bluejay
soothed them by saying:

"After all, I suppose we imagine more evil than really exists, and
sometimes accuse our neighbors wrongfully. But the mother birds know
how often their nests have been robbed in their absence, and if they
suspect some neighbor of the crime instead of a prowling animal it is
but natural, since many birds cannot be trusted. There are laws in the
forest, of course; but the guilty ones are often able to escape. I'll
tell you of a little tragedy that happened only last week, which will
prove how apt we are to be mistaken."

"There is no more faithful mother in the forest than the blue titmouse,
which is a cousin to the chickadee," continued the policeman, "and this
spring Tom Titmouse and his wife Nancy set up housekeeping in a little
hollow in an elm-tree about half a mile north of this spot. Of course,
the first thing Nancy did was to lay six beautiful eggs—white with
brown spots all over them—in the nest. Tom was as proud of these eggs
as was Nancy, and as the nest was hidden in a safe place they flew away
together to hunt for caterpillars, and had no thought of danger. But on
their return an hour later what was their sorrow to find the nest
empty, and every pretty egg gone. On the ground underneath the tree
were scattered a few bits of shell; but the robber was nowhere to be
seen.

"Tom Titmouse was very indignant at this dreadful crime, and came to me
at once to complain of the matter; but of course I had no idea who had
done the deed. I questioned all the birds who have ever been known to
slyly steal eggs, and every one denied the robbery. So Nancy Titmouse
saw she must lay more eggs, and before long had another six speckled
beauties in the bottom of her nest.