Bob: the Story of Our Mocking-Bird

Part 1

BOB

THE STORY OF OUR MOCKING-BIRD

By Sidney Lanier

With Sixteen Illustrations in Color

Charles Scribner's Sons New York, A.D. Mdccccx

Copyright, 1883, by The Independent

Copyright, 1899, by Mary Day Lanier

Prefatory Note

The poet Sidney Lanier loved to swing in full-muscled walks through the fields and woods; to take the biggest bow and quiver out of the archery implements provided for himself and his brood of boys, and with them trailing at his heels, to tramp and shoot at rovers; to bestride a springy horse and ride through the mountains and the valleys, noting what they were pleased to show of tree and bird and beast life. He could feel the honest savage instinct of the hunter (and lose it in his first sight of a stag's death-eyes). A rare bird's nest with eggs produced in him the rapture vouchsafed to barbarian Boy, along with the divine suggestions vouchsafed to the Poet. This may be worth while to say to those of Lanier's readers who may think of him as a sensitive, delicate man of letters, and who must see in most of his writing evidences of extreme sensibility. It was this habit of a practical, face-to-face conversation with nature which, joined with the artist's instinct, makes the sketch of "Bob" so veracious a picture of a bird-individual and a bird-species. Lanier's wife and children remember well the delight the bird had for his brother artist; how the amused flute would trill with extravagant graces to the silent but heedful wonder of the caged one. Every surprising token of intelligence, of affection, of valor displayed by Bob was hailed by Mr. Lanier with a boy's ecstacy over a pet, and a poet's thankfulness of a beautiful work of the Creator.

There is, doubtless, no need to assure the reader that the events of Bob's life as hereinafter depicted are historically true; he was acquired by one of the poet's boys, who, forbidden to rob nests, remembers his fear, on the way home with Bob in his straw hat, that the account of the bird's helpless condition would not serve as a fair and reasonable excuse for keeping him as a pet.

The illustrations which form so important a part of the effort to make a picture of Bob, are unusual in their origin and in their method. Mr. Dugmore made photographic studies of a young mocking-bird, or, rather, of a number of young mocking-birds, the photographs were colored by him, and the plates from these photographs were printed in color. The variety of rare tints in any bird's plumage, their extreme delicacy, and the infinitely fine gradations of shading have almost always baffled the artist and the printer. The present attempt to reproduce Mr. Dugmore's masterly pictures in color shows at least a handsome advance in the difficult art.

Charles Day Lanier.

October, 1899.

List of Illustrations

From Photographs made from Life and colored by A. R. Dugmore

"Bob lying in a lump"

"To increase the volume of his rudimentary feathers"

"Throw his head back and open his yellow-lined beak"

"He scrambled to the bars of the cage--which his feeble companion was unable to do"

"For it was his own image in the looking-glass of a bureau"

"His bath"

"When he smoothed his feathers"

"And as many times slid down the smooth surface of the mirror and wounded himself upon the perilous pin-cushion"

"The most elegant, trim ... little dandy"

"A sidelong, inquiring posture of the head, ... Is she gone?"

"He eats very often"

"Bob never neglects to wipe his beak after each meal"

"He stretches his body until he seems incredibly tall"

Part 2

"When he is cold, he makes himself into a round ball of feathers"

"When his feathers fall. He is then unspeakably dejected.... every feather dropped from his tail"

"We have only to set Bob's cage where a spot of sunshine will fall on it.... up goes his beak, and he is off"

BOB

The Mocking-Bird

Superb and sole, upon a pluméd spray That o'er the general leafage boldly grew, He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay Of languid doves when long their lovers stray, And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew At morn in brake or bosky avenue. Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say. Then down he shot, bounced airily along The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again. Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain: How may the death of that dull insect be The life of yon trim Shakspere on the tree?

BOB

Not that his name ought to be Bob at all. In respect of his behavior during a certain trying period which I am presently to recount, he ought to be called Sir Philip Sidney: yet, by virtue of his conduct in another very troublesome business which I will relate, he has equal claim to be known as Don Quixote de la Mancha: while, in consideration that he is the Voice of his whole race, singing the passions of all his fellows better than any one could sing his own, he is clearly entitled to be named William Shakspere.

For Bob is our mocking-bird. He fell to us out of the top of a certain great pine in a certain small city on the sea-coast of Georgia. In this tree and a host of his lordly fellows which tower over that little city, the mocking-birds abound in unusual numbers. They love the prodigious masses of the leaves, and the generous breezes from the neighboring Gulf Stream, and, most of all, the infinite flood of the sunlight which is so rich and cordial that it will make even a man lift his head towards the sky, as a mocking-bird lifts his beak, and try to sing something or other.

About three years ago, in a sandy road which skirts a grove of such tall pines, a wayfarer found Bob lying in a lump. It could not have been more than a few days since he was no bird at all, only an egg with possibilities. The finder brought him to our fence and turned him over to a young man who had done us the honor to come out of a Strange Country and live at our house about six years before. Gladly received by this last, Bob was brought within, and family discussions were held. He could not be put back into a tree: the hawks would have had him in an hour. The original nest was not to be found. We struggled hard against committing the crime--as we had always considered it--of caging a bird. But finally it became plain that there was no other resource. In fact, we were obliged to recognize that he had come to us from the hand of Providence, and, though we are among the most steady-going democrats of this Republic, we were yet sufficiently acquainted with the etiquette of courts to know that one does not refuse the gift of the King.

Dimly hoping, therefore, that we might see our way clear to devise some means of giving Bob an education that would fit him for a forester, we arranged suitable accommodations for him, and he was tended with motherly care.

He repaid our attentions from the very beginning. He immediately began to pick up in flesh and to increase the volume of his rudimentary feathers. Soon he commenced to call for his food as lustily as any spoiled child. When it was brought, he would throw his head back and open his yellow-lined beak to a width which no one would credit who did not see it. Into this enormous cavity, which seemed almost larger than the bird, his protectress would thrust--and the more vigorously the better he seemed to like it--ball after ball of the yolk of hard-boiled egg mashed up with Irish potato.

How, from this dry compound which was his only fare except an occasional worm off the rose-bushes, Bob could have wrought the surprising nobleness of spirit which he displayed about six weeks after he came to us ... is a matter which I do not believe the most expansive application of Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory of the genesis of emotion could even remotely account for. I refer to the occasion when he fairly earned the title of Sir Philip Sidney. A short time after he became our guest a couple of other fledgelings were brought and placed in his cage. One of these soon died, but the other continued for some time longer to drag out a drooping existence. One day, when Bob was about six weeks old, his usual ration had been delayed, owing to the pressure of other duties upon his attendant. He was not slow to make this circumstance known by all the language available to him. He was very hungry indeed and was squealing with every appearance of entreaty and of indignation when at last the lady of the house was able to bring him his breakfast. He scrambled to the bars of the cage--which his feeble companion was unable to do--took the proffered ball of egg-and-potato fiercely in his beak, and then, instead of swallowing it, deliberately flapped back to his sick guest in the corner and gave him the whole of it without tasting a morsel.

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