"Travel--do birds travel?" cried both children in the same breath. "Oh, where do they go, and what for?"
"Father will tell you about that. Now you must do what he said--each find a bird, and see if you can describe it. Suppose we sit on this great root. It belongs to the oldest tree in the orchard, and Grandmother Hunter used to play house up in the top of it when she was a little girl. Father told me he had a perch up there when he was a boy, so that he could watch the birds. Perhaps, if you are careful and really want to keep quiet and see the birds, he will have one fixed for you."
"How jolly!" said Nat. "Sh-h! I see a bird now--such a queer little thing--it"s running round like a mouse. Oh! oh! it goes just as well upside down as any other way." And Nat pulled out his pencil and book and waited for the bird to come in sight again, which it was kind enough to do very soon.
"Size"--wrote Nat, struggling with his pencil, which would squeak, because he had foolishly put it in his mouth. "How big would you call it?"
"Little," said Dodo promptly.
"Kind of little, but not so very. I"ve seen smaller in the Museum," said Nat. "What would you call it, Olive?"
"I should call it rather a small bird, if I were not speaking exactly.
But if you wish to be more particular you must try to guess its length in inches. When I was about your age father measured my right-hand middle finger and told me it was three inches long. Then he made two marks across it with violet ink, which takes a long time to wash off, so that my finger made a three-inch measure. I soon grew accustomed to look at a bird and then at my finger, from nail to knuckle, and then try to tell how many times longer the bird was from the point of his beak down over his back to the tip of his tail. Of course I made a great many mistakes and could seldom tell exactly, but it was a great help."
"How long is my finger?" asked Nat eagerly, spreading out a rather large hand for a boy of ten.
"About four inches."
"Then that bird is quite a little longer than that--five or six inches anyway." And he wrote, "Length, five or six inches."
"Ah, he has gone," wailed Dodo. "Oh, no, he hasn"t. He has come round the tree again--he says _squank, squank, squank_, as if his voice was rusty. Is that his song, Cousin Olive?"
"No, he is only talking now."
"Talking? It seems to me that birds can do ever so many more things than I thought they possibly could."
"Black head," said Nat, as he continued writing; "sort of gray on top and white in front; his tail is black and white and rusty looking underneath, and--there, he has flown away! Do you think that will do, and will uncle know his name? Oh, I forgot, he says _squank_, goes head down, and picks things out of the tree bark." "Yes, that will do for a beginning, but father will tell you some simple names for the different parts of every bird, so that your descriptions need not confuse you. If every one gave his own names, no two people would quite understand each other."
"Oh! I see a bird," whispered Dodo, pointing to the gra.s.s at a little distance. "See! it"s quite as big as a Pigeon and speckled all over black and brown and has a red mark on the back of its neck. Please write it down for me, Olive; it takes me so long to write, and I haven"t seen it in front yet. There, it"s turning round--oh! it has a black mark in front of its neck like a cravat and it"s speckled underneath. It has flown a little further off and is walking up a tree, and it"s very white on its back where its tail begins. Oh! do hear it laugh, Nat." And the Flicker, the big Woodp.e.c.k.e.r with golden lining to its wings, for it was he, gave out peal after peal of his jolly call-note.
"Can"t we go in now to ask Uncle Roy the names of these birds, and see if he won"t begin our book this afternoon?"
"It isn"t an hour yet since we came out. Come down through the orchard; I hear some Bluebirds singing and perhaps you can see them. They are very tame, and often make their nests in the knot holes in these old trees."
"See, Olive," said Dodo, "what is that down in the gra.s.s by the fence?
It is something moving. Do you think it can be any sort of a wild animal?"
"No, it"s a boy," said Nat. "I see his head. Perhaps he has come to catch some birds. Let"s drive him away." "Gently, gently, Nat," said Olive; "it is a boy, but you are not sure that he is doing any harm, and besides it was only yesterday that you were vexed with me because I wouldn"t let you pop at the birds yourself. We will ask him what he is doing."
They went through the orchard, and found a boy, about twelve years old, lying in the gra.s.s. He had dark hair and eyes, and a sun-burned face, but was very thin, and a rude crutch was lying beside him.
"Well, little boy," said Olive pleasantly, "what is your name, and what are you doing here?"
The child looked frightened at first and hid his face on his arm, but finally looked up, and said timidly, "My name is Rap, and I was watching the birds. Please, I didn"t know anybody lived here, only cows, and I"ve been coming in most times for two years."
Then they saw that he had a tattered piece of a book in one hand, which he slipped inside his jacket as carefully as if it were a great treasure.
"Watching them to like them or to catch them?" asked Nat suspiciously, then feeling ashamed the next moment when Rap answered:
"To like them. I"d never kill a bird! I"ve sometimes found dead ones that have hit against the telegraph wires; and it makes you feel lumpy in your throat to see how every little feather lies so soft and lovely, though they never will fly any more."
By this time the three were seated in front of the strange boy, looking at him with great interest.
"What is the book you were reading when we came up?" asked Olive. Rap pulled it out and laid it on her lap, saying, "I don"t know its name--the beginning part that tells is gone--but it"s all about birds.
Here"s a picture of a Bluebird, only it isn"t quite right, somehow. Oh, I do wish I had all of the book."
Olive turned over the leaves that looked familiar to her and saw that it began at page 443. "Why, it is part of the first volume of Nuttall"s "Manual of Birds." My father has the whole of this book," she said.
"Where did you find this bit?"
"The rag pedler that comes by every fall lets me look in his bags, "cause sometimes there are paper books in them, and he gave me this for nothing, "cause it was only a piece."
"Why don"t you ask your father to buy you a whole book, instead of grubbing in rag-bags?" said Nat thoughtlessly.
Rap looked from one to the other, as if in his interest he had forgotten himself for a time, and then he said quietly, "I haven"t any father."
"I haven"t any mother," said Olive quickly, putting her hand gently on the thin brown one. "We must be friends, Rap."
Her sympathy soothed him immediately, and his gentle nature instantly tried to comfort her by saying, "But you said your father owned the whole of my book. How glad you must be!"
Then they all laughed, and Nat and Dodo began telling about their uncle"s room and all the books and birds in it, and about the book he had promised to write for them, until Rap looked so bewildered that Olive was obliged to explain things a little more clearly to him. "Come home with us," cried Nat and Dodo, each seizing him by a hand, "and perhaps uncle will tell you all the names we must learn--head, throat, wings, and what all the other parts are rightly called--and then we can go around together and watch birds."
But as Rap turned over and scrambled up with the aid of his crutch, they saw that he had only one leg, for the trouser of the left leg was tied together just below the knee.
Acting as if they did not notice this, they led the way to the house, going close to the fence that divided the orchard from the road, because there was a little path worn there.
"What is the whole of your name?" asked Dodo, who could not keep from asking questions.
"Stephen Hawley," he answered. "My mother is Ann Hawley, who lives by the mill, and does all the beautiful fine white washing for everybody hereabouts. Don"t you know her? I suppose it"s because you have just come. I believe my mother could wash a cobweb if she tried, and not tear it," and a glow of pride lit up his face.
"But you said a little while ago that your name was Rap."
"Everybody calls me Rap, because when I go along the road my crutch hits the stones, and says "rap--rap--rap.""
"Here"s a dead bird," said Nat, picking something from under the fence.
"It"s a White-throated Sparrow," said Rap, "and it"s flown against the telegraph wire in the dark and been killed." "We will take it to uncle and ask him to tell us all about it."
"Yes, yes," said Dodo, "we will all go"--and Rap hopped off after the other children so quickly that Olive had hard work to keep up with him.
This time Nat and Dodo did not hesitate outside the study door, but gave a pound or two and burst into the room.
"Uncle Roy, Uncle Roy, we have seen two birds and written down about them, but we didn"t quite know what to call the front part where the neck ends and the stomach begins, or the beginning of the tail, and Olive says there are right names for all these parts. And we found Rap in the orchard and he only has half a book, and here"s a White-throated Sparrow, and we want to know how it"s made and why birds can fly and why--"
Here the Doctor laughingly stopped them and turned to Olive for a clearer account of what had taken place in the orchard, while Rap stood gazing about the room as if he thought that heaven had suddenly opened to him.
"Now, children," said the Doctor, as soon as the youngsters had stopped chattering, "I will first _tell_ you some stories about the birds; then if you like them I will make them into a little book that other girls and boys may read." And as the children began to dance about, he continued: "But before I tell you the names and habits of some of our home birds, you must learn a few things that are true of all birds--what they are; where they belong among animals; how they are made; how they do good and why we should protect them; and the wonderful journeys some of them take. To-morrow I will begin by answering Dodo"s questions whether a bird is an animal, and why it has feathers."
"I think a bird is something like a boat," said Rap eagerly. "When it flies its wings are like sails in the air, and when it swims its feet row under the water, and the tail balances behind like a rudder and the head sticks out in front like the bowsprit."