Solomon was not wasteful about his food. He swallowed his evening breakfast whole. That is, he swallowed all but the tail, which was fairly long and stuck out of his mouth for some time, giving him rather a queer two-tailed look, one at each end! But there was no one about to laugh at him, and it was, in some respects, an excellent way to make a meal. For one thing, it saved him all trouble of cutting up his food; and then, too, there was no danger of his overeating, for he could tell that he had had enough as long as there wasn't room for the tail. And after the good nutritious parts of his breakfast were digested, he had a comfortable way of spitting out the skin and bones all wadded together in a tidy pellet. An owl is not the only kind of bird, by any means, that has a habit of spitting out hard stuff that is swallowed with the food. A crow tucks away many a discarded cud of that sort; and even the thrush, half an hour or so after a dainty fare of wild cherries, taken whole, drops from his bill to the ground the pits that have been squeezed out of the fruit by the digestive mill inside of him.
After his breakfast, which he ate alone in the evening starlight and moonlight, Solomon passed an enjoyable night; for that world, which to most of us is lost in darkness and in sleep, is full of lively interest to an owl. Who, indeed, would not be glad to visit his starlit kingdom, with eyesight keen enough to see the folded leaves of clover like little hands in prayer--a kingdom with byways sweet with the scent and mellow with the beauty of waking primrose? Who would not welcome, for one wonderful night, the gift of ears that could hear the sounds which to little Solomon were known and understood, but many of which are lost in deafness to our dull ears?
Of course, it may be that Solomon never noticed that clovers fold their leaves by night, or that primroses are open and fragrant after dusk. For he was an owl, and not a person, and his thoughts were not the thoughts of man. But for all that they were wise thoughts--wise as the look of his big round eyes; and many things he knew which are unguessed secrets to dozy day-folk.
He was a successful hunter, and he had a certain sort of knowledge about the habits of the creatures he sought. He seldom learned where the day birds slept, for he did not find motionless things. But he knew well enough that mice visited the corn-crib, and where their favorite runways came out into the open. He knew where the cutworms crept out of the ground and feasted o' nights in the farmer's garden. He knew where the big brown beetles hummed and buzzed while they munched greedily of shade-tree leaves. And he knew where little fishes swam near the surface of the water.
So he hunted on silent wings the bright night long; and though he did not starve himself, as we can guess from what we know about his breakfast of rare mouse-steak, still, the tenderest and softest delicacies he took home to five fine youngsters, who welcomed their father with open mouths and eager appetite. Though he made his trips as quickly as he could, he never came too soon to suit them--the hungry little rascals.
[Illustration: _Solomon knew the runways of the mice._]
They were cunning and dear and lovable. Even a person could see that, to look at them. It is not surprising that their own father was fond enough of them to give them the greater part of the game he caught. He had, indeed, been interested in them before he ever saw them--while they were still within the roundish white eggshells, and did not need to be fed because there was food enough in the egg to last them all the days until they hatched.
Yes, many a time he had kept those eggs warm while Mrs. Otus was away for a change; and many a time, too, he stayed and kept her company when she was there to care for them herself. Now, it doesn't really need two owls at the same time to keep a few eggs warm. Of course not! So why should little Solomon have sat sociably cuddled down beside her? Perhaps because he was fond of her and liked her companionship. It would have been sad, indeed, if he had not been happy in his home, for he was an affectionate little fellow and had had some difficulty in winning his mate. There had been, early in their acquaintance, what seemed to Solomon a long time during which she would not even speak to him. Why, 'tis said he had to bow to her as many as twenty or thirty times before she seemed even to notice that he was about. But those days were over for good and all, and Mrs. Otus was a true comrade for Solomon as well as a faithful little mother. Together they made a happy home, and were quite charming in it.
They could be brave, too, when courage was needed, as they gave proof the day that a boy wished he hadn't climbed up and stuck his hand in at their door-hole, to find out what was there. While Mrs. Otus spread her feathers protectingly over her eggs, Solomon lay on his back, and, reaching up with beak and clutching claws, fought for the safety of his family. In the heat of the battle he hissed, whereupon the boy retreated, badly beaten, but proudly boasting of an adventure with some sort of animal that felt like a wildcat and sounded like a snake.
Besides, courage when needed, health, affection, good-nature, and plenty of food were enough to keep a family of owls contented. To be sure, some folk might not have been so well satisfied with the way the household was run. A crow, I feel quite sure, would not have considered the place fit to live in. Mrs. Otus was not, indeed, a tidy housekeeper. The floor was dirty--very dirty--and was never slicked up from one week's end to another. But then, Solomon didn't mind. He was used to it. Mrs. Otus was just like his own mother in that respect; and it might have worried him a great deal to have to keep things spick and span after the way he had been brought up. Why, the beautiful white eggshell he hatched out of was dirty when he pipped it, and never in all his growing-up days did he see his mother or father really clean house. So it is no wonder he was rather shiftless and easy-going. Neither of them had shown what might be called by some much ambition when they went house-hunting early that spring; for although the place they chose had been put into fairly good repair by rather an able carpenter,--a woodpecker,--still, it had been lived in before, and might have been improved by having some of the rubbish picked up and thrown out. But do you think Solomon spent any of his precious evenings that way? No, nor Mrs. Otus either. They moved in just as it was, in the most happy-go-lucky sort of way.
Well, whatever a crow or other particular person might think of that nest, we should agree that a father and mother owl must be left to manage affairs for their young as Nature has taught them; and if those five adorable babies of Solomon didn't prove that the way they were brought up was an entire success from an owlish point of view, I don't know what could.
[Illustration: _Those five adorable babies of Solomon._]
Take them altogether, perhaps you could not find a much more interesting family than the little Otuses. As to size and shape, they were as much alike as five peas in a pod; but for all that, they looked so different that it hardly seemed possible that they could be own brothers and sisters. For one of the sons of Solomon and two of his daughters had gray complexions, while the other son and daughter were reddish brown.
Now Solomon and Mrs. Otus were both gray, except, of course, what white feathers and black streaks were mixed up in their mottlings and dapples; so it seems strange enough to see two of their children distinctly reddish. But, then, one never can tell just what color an owl of this sort will be, anyway. Solomon himself, though gray, was the son of a reddish father and a gray mother, and he had one gray brother and two reddish sisters: while Mrs. Otus, who had but one brother and one sister, was the only gray member of her family. Young or old, summer or winter, Solomon and Mrs. Otus were gray, though, young or old, summer or winter, their fathers had both been of a reddish complexion.
Now this sort of variation in color you can readily see is altogether a different matter from the way Father Goldfinch changes his feathers every October for a winter coat that looks much the same as that of Mother Goldfinch and his young daughters; and then changes every spring to a beautiful yellow suit, with black-and-white trimmings and a black cap, for the summer. It is different, too, from the color-styles of Bob the Vagabond, who merely wears off the dull tips of his winter feathers, and appears richly garbed in black and white, set off with a lovely bit of yellow, for his gay summer in the north. Again, it is something quite different from the color-fashions of Larie, who was not clothed in a beautiful white garment and soft gray mantle, like his father's and mother's, until he was quite grown up.
No, the complexion of Solomon and his sons and daughters was a different matter altogether, because it had nothing whatever to do with season of the year, or age, or sex. But for all that it was not different from the sort of color-variations that Mother Nature gives to many of her children; and you may meet now and again examples of the same sort among flowers, and insects, and other creatures, too.
But, reddish or gray, it made no difference to Solomon and Mrs. Otus.
They had no favorites among their children, but treated them all alike, bringing them food in abundance: not only enough to keep them happy the night long, but laying up a supply in the pantry, so that the youngsters might have luncheons during the day.
Although Solomon had night eyes, he was not blind by day. He passed the brightest hours quietly for the most part, dozing with both his outer eyelids closed, or sometimes sitting with those open and only the thin inner lid drawn sidewise across his eye. It seems strange to think of his having three eyelids; but, then, perhaps we came pretty near having a third one ourselves; for there is a little fold tucked down at the inner corner, which might have been a third lid that could move across the eye sidewise, if it had grown bigger. And sometimes, of a dazzling day in winter, when the sun is shining on the glittering snow, such a thin lid as Solomon had might be very comfortable, even for our day eyes, and save us the trouble of wearing colored glasses.
[Illustration: _He passed the brightest hours dozing._]
Lively as Solomon was by night, all he asked during the day was peace and quiet. He had it, usually. It was seldom that even any of the wild folk knew where his nest was; and when he spent the day outside, in some shady place, he didn't show much. His big feather-horns at such times helped make him look like a ragged stub of a branch, or something else he wasn't. It is possible for a person to go very close to an owl without seeing him; and fortunately for Solomon, birds did not find him every day. For when they did, they mobbed him.
One day, rather late in the summer, Cock Robin found him and sent forth the alarm. To be sure, Solomon was doing no harm--just dozing, he was, on a branch. But Cock Robin scolded and sputtered and called him mean names; and the louder he talked, the more excited all the other birds in the neighborhood became. Before long there were twenty angry kingbirds and sparrows and other feather-folk, all threatening to do something terrible to Solomon.
Now, Solomon had been having a good comfortable nap, with his feathers all hanging loose, when Cock Robin chanced to alight on the branch near him. He pulled himself up very thin and as tall as possible, with his feathers drawn tight against his body. When the bird-mob got too near him, he looked at them with his big round eyes, and said, "Oh!" in a sweet high voice. But his soft tone did not turn away their wrath. They came at him harder than ever. Then Solomon showed his temper, for he was no coward. He puffed his feathers out till he looked big and round, and he snapped his beak till the click of it could be heard by his tormentors. And he hissed.
But twenty enemies were too many, and there was only one thing to be done. Solomon did it. First thing those birds knew, they were scolding at nothing at all; and way off in the darkest spot he could find in the woods, a little owl settled himself quite alone and listened while the din of a distant mob grew fainter and fainter and fainter, as one by one those twenty birds discovered that there was no one left on the branch to scold at.
If Solomon knew why the day birds bothered him so, he never told. He could usually keep out of their way in the shady woods in the summer; but in the winter, when the leaves were off all but the evergreen trees, he had fewer places to hide in. Of course, there were not then so many birds to worry him, for most of them went south for the snowy season.
But Jay stayed through the coldest days and enjoyed every chance he had of pestering Solomon. I don't know that this was because he really disliked the little owl. Jay was as full of mischief as a crow, and if the world got to seeming a bit dull, instead of moping and feeling sorry and waiting for something to happen, Jay looked about for some way of amusing himself. He was something of a bully,--a great deal of a bully, in fact,--this dashing rascal in a gay blue coat; and the more he could swagger, the better he liked it.
He seemed, too, to have very much the same feeling that we mean by joy, in fun and frolic. There was, perhaps, in the sight of a bird asleep and listless in broad daylight, something amusing. He was in the habit of seeing the feather-folk scatter at his approach. If he understood why, that didn't bother him any. He was used to it, and there is no doubt he liked the power he had of making his fellow creatures fly around. When he found, sitting on a branch, with two toes front and two toes back, a downy puff with big round eyes and a Roman nose and feather-horns sticking up like the ears of a cat, maybe he was a bit puzzled because it didn't fly, too. Perhaps he didn't quite know what to make of poor little Solomon, who, disturbed from his nap, just drew himself up slim and tall, and remarked, "Oh!" in a sweet high voice.
But, puzzled or not, Jay knew very well what he could do about it. He had done it so many times before! It was a game he liked. He stood on a branch, and called Solomon names in loud, harsh tones. He flew around as if in a terrible temper, screaming at the top of his voice. When he began, there was not another day bird in sight. Before many minutes, all the chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers within hearing had arrived, and had taken sides with Jay. Yes, even sunny-hearted Chick D.D. himself said things to Solomon that were almost saucy. I never heard that any of these mobs actually hurt our little friend; but they certainly disturbed his nap, and there was no peace for him until he slipped away. Where he went, there was no sound to tell, for his feathers were fringed with silent down. Perhaps some snow-bowed branch of evergreen gave him shelter, in a nook where he could see better than the day-eyed birds who tried to follow and then lost track of him.
So Solomon went on with his nap, and Jay started off in quest of other adventures. The winter air put a keen edge on his appetite, which was probably the reason why he began to hunt for some of the cupboards where food was stored. Of course, he had tucked a goodly supply of acorns and such things away for himself; but he slipped into one hollow in a tree that was well stocked with frozen fish, which he had certainly had no hand in catching. But what did it matter to the blue-jacketed robber if that fish had meant a three-night fishing at an air-hole in the ice? He didn't care (and probably didn't know) who caught it. It tasted good on a frosty day, so he feasted on fish in Solomon's pantry, while the little owl slept.
Well, if Jay, the bold dashing fellow, held noisy revel during the dazzling winter days, night came every once in so often; and then a quavering call, tremulous yet unafraid, told the listening world that an elf of the moonlight was claiming his own. And if some shivered at the sound, others there were who welcomed it as a challenge to enter the realm of a winter's night.
For, summer or winter, the night holds much of mystery, close to the heart of which lives a little downy owl, who wings his way silent as a shadow, whither he will. And when he calls, people who love the stars and the wonders they shine down upon sometimes go out to the woods and talk with him, for the words he speaks are not hard even for a human voice to say. There was once a boy, so a great poet tells us, who stood many a time at evening beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake, and called the owls that they might answer him. While he listened, who knows what the bird of wisdom told him about the night?
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: _Hexapod Stories_, page 89.]
XII
BOB THE VAGABOND
Bob had on his traveling suit, for a vagabond must go a-journeying. It would never do to stay too long in one place, and here it was August already. Why, he had been in Maine two months and more, and it is small wonder he was getting restless. Restless, though not unhappy! Bob was never that; for the joy of the open way was always before him, and whenever the impulse came, he could set sail and be off.
The meadows of Maine had been his choice for his honeymoon, and a glad time of it he and May had had with their snug little home of woven grass. That home was like an anchor to them both, and held their hearts fast during the days it had taken to make five grown-sized birds out of five eggs. But now that their sons and daughters were strong of wing and fully dressed in traveling suits like their mother's, it was well that Bob had put off his gay wedding clothes and donned a garb of about the same sort as that worn by the rest of his family; for dull colors are much the best for trips.
Now that they were properly dressed, there was nothing left to see to, except to join the Band of Bobolink Vagabonds. Of course no one can be a member of this band without the password; but there was nothing about that to worry Bob. When any of them came near, he called, "Chink," and the gathering flock would sing out a cheery "Chink" in reply: and that is the way he and his family were initiated into the Band of Bobolink Vagabonds. Anyone who can say "Chink" may join this merry company. That is, anyone who can pronounce it with just exactly the right sound!
So, with a flutter of pleasant excitement, they were gone. Off, they were, for a land that lies south of the Amazon, and with no more to say about it than, "Chink."
No trunk, no ticket, no lunch-box; and the land they would seek was four thousand miles or more away! Poor little Bob! had he but tapped at the door of Man with his farewell "Chink," someone could have let him see a map of his journey. For men have printed time-tables of the Bobolink Route, with maps to show what way it lies, and with the different Stations marked where food and rest can be found. The names of some of the most important Stations that a bobolink, starting from Maine, should stop at on the way to Brazil and Paraguay, are Maryland, South Carolina, Florida, Cuba, Jamaica, and Venezuela.
Does it seem a pity that the little ignorant bird started off without knowing even the name of one of these places? Ah, no! A journeying bobolink needs no advice. "Poor," indeed! Why, Bob had a gift that made him fortunate beyond the understanding of men. Nature has dealt generously with Man, to be sure, giving him power to build ships for the sea and the air, and trains for the land, whereon he may go, and power to print time-tables to guide the time of travel. But to Bob also, who could do none of these things, Nature had, nevertheless, been generous, and had given him power to go four thousand miles without losing his way, though he had neither chart nor compass. What it would be like to have this gift, we can hardly even guess--we who get lost in the woods a mile from home, and wander in bewildered circles, not knowing where to turn! We can no more know how Bob found his way than the born-deaf can know the sound of a merry tune, or the born-blind can know the look of a sunset sky. Some people think that, besides the five senses given to a man, Nature gave one more to the bobolink--a sixth gift, called a "sense of direction."
A wonderful gift for a vagabond! To journey hither and yon with never a fear of being lost! To go forty hundred miles and never miss the way! To sail over land and over sea,--over meadow and forest and mountain,--and reach the homeland, far south of the Amazon, at just the right time! To travel by starlight as well as by sunshine, without once mistaking the path!
By starlight? What, Bob, who had frolicked and chuckled through the bright June days, and dozed o' nights so quietly that never a passing owl could see a motion to tempt a chase?
Yes, when he joined the Band of Bobolink Vagabonds, the gates of the night, which had been closed to him by Sleep, were somehow thrown open, and Bob was free to journey, not only where he would, but when he would--neither darkness nor daylight having power to stop him then.
Is it strange that his wings quivered with the joy of voyaging as surely as the sails of a boat tighten in the tugging winds?
What would you give to see this miracle--a bobolink flying through the night? For it has been seen; there being men who go and watch, when their calendars tell them 't is time for birds to take their southward flight. Their eyes are too feeble to see such sights unaided; so they look through a telescope toward the full round moon, and then they can see the birds that pass between them and the light. Like a procession they go--the bobolinks and other migrants, too; for the night sky is filled with travelers when birds fly south.
But though we could not see them, we should know when they are on their way because of their voices. What would you give to hear this miracle--a bobolink calling his watchword through the night? For it has been heard; there being men who go to the hilltops and listen.
As they hear, now and again, wanderers far above them calling, "Chink,"
one to another, they know the bobolinks are on their way to a land that lies south of the Amazon, and that neither sleep nor darkness bars their path, which is open before them to take when and where they will.
And yet Bob and his comrades did not hasten. The year was long enough for pleasure by the way. He and May had worked busily to bring up a family of five fine sons and daughters early in the summer; and now that their children were able to look out for themselves, there was no reason why the birds should not have some idle, care-free hours.