Читать книгу Birds and Nature, Vol. 10 No. 1 [June 1901] - Various - Страница 3

Uncle Philip was 16 years old, tall and strong, with merry dark eyes, red cheeks and thick, soft, wavy, brown hair. Every day except Saturday he was in school. Sometimes on Saturdays he went in the woods botanizing or he rowed his pretty boat, “The Lorelei,” upon the lake. But, often he went to his sister’s, Mamma Bryant’s, to spend the day and work upon the farm. His little nephew, Leicester, was always glad when he came, for Uncle Philip took him with him to the field or barn, told him funny stories and taught him to take notice of all the things he saw or heard. One beautiful day in October, after the corn had been all cut and was standing in big yellow stooks, making long rows through the stubble, Uncle Philip arrived early in the morning at Leicester’s home. Leicester was still in bed when Uncle Philip came, and Mamma Bryant said to herself, “I must go and see if he is awake.” But just as she was about to open the door, out came Leicester in his white pajamas, rubbing his eyes and looking a little bit sleepy.

“Come, Leicester,” said his mamma, “I will help you dress and then you can have your breakfast. Uncle Philip has been here and he has gone to the cornfield south of the meadow. He hitched up Blotter and Little Gray on the new wagon and will drive back to dinner. Come with me and get ready for breakfast. After breakfast I want you to take little sister Keren with you and hunt for the eggs. If you are a good, pleasant boy this morning you may go this afternoon with uncle, and I will make some cookies for you to take in your lunch basket.”

Leicester, who was generally a very good boy, promised to do as his mother desired.

Before dinner time Aunt Dorothy came, and it was decided that she, too, should go to the cornfield and take Keren with her.

By one o’clock dinner was over. Mamma Bryant had decided that Leicester’s lunch basket was too small, so she had taken a peach basket, into which she put, among other good things to eat, some large red apples and ever so many fresh baked cookies.

Uncle Philip had driven up the roadway and was standing in the new wagon waiting for his passengers. Corn huskers never take a seat on their wagons, but Uncle Philip had laid a board across the wagon-box and on that Aunt Dorothy seated herself.

It was a warm, bright day and the wagon ride to the cornfield was delightful. Blotter and Little Gray were not a very handsome team, but they were good gentle horses and the children loved them. Blotter was a white horse with black spots on him, which made him look as if he had been used for a pen-wiper.

On the way to the cornfield a little rabbit ran out of the bushes by the roadside, but quickly hid himself again. The chipmunks stood on their hind feet in the tall, withered grass and watched the new wagon coming down the road and popped into their holes when they thought it had come too near. The plumy pappus of the golden rod, with great bunches of scarlet rose seeds, bursting pods of the satin plant and clusters of large red and chocolate oak leaves growing on year-old sprouts which had sprung up from the stumps of trees cut down the fall before made huge bouquets in the fence corners. While driving through the meadow the horses, which were pastured there, came up to neigh a good-day to their friends in the harness and trotted along for some time on both sides of the wagon and behind it. At last the cornfield was reached and Uncle Philip drove up to a corn stook.

“Look at that bird sitting on the wire fence,” said Aunt Dorothy. “Isn’t that a butcher bird?”

“Yes,” said Uncle Philip, “that is a shrike, or butcher bird. I should not wonder if it were the same bird that followed me around this morning. I won’t tell you what he did, but if you will watch him maybe you’ll see something very interesting yourself.”

Uncle Philip put on his husking gloves and began his work, taking the ears of corn from the stalks in the stook without disturbing it any more than he could help.

Aunt Dorothy remained sitting on her board in the wagon.

Leicester and Keren went to play in the meadow through which they had just driven, and they frightened the butcher bird so that he flew away from the fence and perched near the top of a tall cornstalk in a neighboring stook. Keren found a dandelion blossom and Leicester a wild rose, a bit of pale, pink beauty that had blossomed late and alone on a bush whose leaves were dusty and faded. The children went to a hickory tree expecting to find some nuts on the ground, but the squirrels had been there already and nothing was left except some nut-shells. Yes, there were three or four nuts, but when, by the aid of two stones, the children had cracked them, they found the meat inside all dried up and unfit to eat. The squirrels must have known this without cracking the nuts, otherwise they would not have left them as they did.

Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Philip were talking about the butcher bird.

“The butcher bird is found all over the world,” said Aunt Dorothy, “and has different names in different countries.”

“And it has been written about by men who lived a long, long time ago,” said Uncle Philip, and he told Aunt Dorothy some of those men’s names. But they are so long and hard to say I will not tell them here.

“The shrike is a cousin to the crow. Nearly all the crows have black feathers, but the butcher bird wears a different dress in France from the one he wears in England, and in India he has still another garb,” said Aunt Dorothy.

“Yes,” said Uncle Philip, “but all the shrikes everywhere have toothed bills.”

By this time two more shrikes or butcher birds had joined the first one and all three were flying about impatiently from place to place.

“Just as if they were waiting for something to happen,” said Aunt Dorothy.

“So they are,” said Uncle Philip, who had finished husking the corn in his stook. “Call the children now; or I will,” he said, and whistled and beckoned till Leicester and Keren came running to where he was.

“Now,” he said, “look at that stunted old tree over there, children. Do you see the three butcher birds in it?”

Yes, every one saw the birds.

“Well, then,” he said, “get into the wagon and keep watch of them. I am going to drive to the next corn stook,” and away they went. After Uncle Philip had stopped the horses he told Aunt Dorothy and the children to sit together on the board with their backs to the horses and keep very still.

“I am going behind the corn stook and will pull it away as best I can from where it now stands. Watch the birds and the ground near the stook.”

As soon as he had pulled away the cornstalks he stooped down and walked away some distance as quickly and quietly as he could. Then Aunt Dorothy and the children saw the butcher birds alight on the ground on which the cornstalks had been and catch young mice and moles. One of the birds took a mole to the wire fence near by and stuck it on a barb. Then he flew away, leaving it hanging there. He was going to catch some young mice to eat just then and save the mole for luncheon.

His claws were not strong enough to hold the mole while he could kill and eat it, but if he hung it on the wire fence he could use all his strength in tearing it to pieces with his strong toothed bill. Every one felt sorry for the poor mole, but all were glad to be able to see how the butcher bird gets his dinner.

Time went by and soon Uncle Philip was ready to move another bunch of cornstalks. Aunt Dorothy and the children prepared to watch again, for the butcher birds were still in the neighborhood and waiting anxiously for a chance to secure some more prey. This time there was a rat under the cornstalks and a bold butcher bird flew at him and tried to kill him. The rat, however, got away from his enemy in feathers. One of the butcher birds caught a mole and stuck it on a long thorn on a hawthorn tree.

“Let us have something to eat as well as the birds,” said Uncle Philip. So he left Blotter and Little Gray standing in the field – they were never known to run away – and all went to a pleasant spot in the meadow and ate the luncheon which Mama Bryant had sent in the peach basket. Oh, how good those cookies tasted to Leicester and Keren!

Those were happy passengers who rode home that evening on the yellow ears of corn. Keren had found one red ear and she took it home and gave it a place by the side of her pet playthings.

At supper time Leicester told his papa what they had seen the butcher birds do, and Aunt Dorothy said: “You must tell about it in school, Leicester; it will make a good Monday morning story.”

That evening after Uncle Philip and Aunt Dorothy had gone home and the children had said their little evening prayer Leicester kissed his mother and told her he would try to be a good boy every day for a whole week. “And I hope I will have as good a time next Saturday as I have had to-day,” said he.

And all night long the little stars peeping through the windows saw two happy little faces asleep upon their pillows.

Mary Grant O’Sheridan.