Part 2

I was too afraid to cry out, and I could only lie still and listen to my heart beat. It went so quick and so hard that I thought I should die; but somehow I was compelled to see that he didn’t hurt me or pinch me, and his voice was all the time talking so softly and gently to me, though it sounded deep and strong like the voice of a storm that once nearly shook me out of our nest. He was carrying me away rapidly, and said something about his wife and “little girlie,” who would surely help him take care of me until I could fly.

Soon we went inside a house. I had never been in such a dark place before, and I was made afraid again, as badly as ever, by two persons, dressed differently from the tall, bearded man, but whose voices were softer and more like a bird’s than his. I heard him tell about seeing me try to reach my mother, and then how she had flown away and deserted me, and he had caught me and brought me home, lest, said he, “some cat should catch the poor little thing and gobble it up.”

That is just how I came to be in a house, and the beginning of my life with human beings,--three of them--a man and two women.

Chapter II

My First Week In-doors

My first week in-doors was very painful and distressing to me. Though my father and mother had never been kind, still they were my father and mother. But now I was all the time with strangers,--great, monstrous, tall human beings, and I was such a tiny little bird! How could I feel at home with them? It scared me just to see them.

Still, scared or not, what was I to do? I had to stay there, for, unlike my home in the nest in the tree, here everything was shut up. The air was warm and close, and it made me feel queer most of the time. It was not fresh and bracing like the out-door air I had been used to. I was shut in,--that was all there was to it; but it took me a long time to learn to make the best of it. For the tall man, now and again, would catch me and put me up onto the window-sill, and I didn’t know that I couldn’t go through the glass. I tried again and again, but always bumped my bill hard against the glass and never got any further. I saw happy little birds outside. They seemed to be strong and well; and how I longed to be with them! I found great pleasure, however, in walking back and forth on the edge of the window sash, and the warm sunshine that shone in upon me was very comforting. When other birds flew near by I used to get very excited, and stretch my legs and neck so hard to see them and get to them, that the “man of the house” would laugh very heartily at me. And then he would call to “Mamma” and “Edith,” and together they would stand and look and laugh at me, while I stretched and chirped and twittered to the birds outside.

Of course, I had not been in the house long before I was a very hungry little bird. I don’t think you know how very hungry so tiny a bird can get. I was desperately hungry. How I was going to be fed I did not know. But I chirped, and cheeped, and called out as loudly as I could, and soon the “Fessor”--as the women called the man--came into the room with a saucer in his hand. In the saucer was some white-looking substance that he called bread and milk. But I didn’t know what to do with it. So to let him know how hungry I was I chirped more, and then opened my mouth wide, and wider still, as baby birds do, hoping that he would find some way of getting the food into me. And he did! Instead of putting it into my throat with his bill--he hadn’t one--as my mother did, he caught me when I wasn’t expecting it, and taking some of the white stuff in his fingers, held it close to me. When I opened my bill to cheep, he pushed it in, and my! how strange it tasted. But it was good. It was sweet, and warm, and nice. So I swallowed it and opened my mouth for more, and he gave me another piece. Then he called to Edith, and she and Mamma came and watched me until, as they said, I was “stuffed as full as an egg.” Two or three times that day he fed me in the same fashion, and I began then to get over my fear of him. He didn’t seem to want to hurt me, and he was very, very gentle with me; and I even began, once or twice, to snuggle down in his hand, for it was so large and warm and comfortable. Then that awful fear came, and I sprang out of his reach and ran to the end of his desk, and when he reached out after me, I wildly leaped off the desk, fell to the floor, and then ran as fast as I could behind the desk in order to be safe.

This was the name given me by a dear little child trying to say Professor, and the name has stuck ever since.

We had several days of this, and I soon found that when he fed me I need not be afraid at all. He never hurt me then. But I never knew when he would hurt. So I thought it best to keep out of his way. He talked very nicely to me, however, I must confess, and I soon learned to like to hear his voice. I felt better when he was in the room, and it was lonesome when he went away, for he shut the door so that I couldn’t go anywhere else.

It was not many days before I knew all about that room. It was a queer room, as compared with rooms I afterwards saw. Mamma and Edith called it Fessor’s “den,” and surely it was a den. There was a desk opposite to one window. On this was a row of books reaching right across, and piles of papers, and pictures, and one thing and another, sometimes on the sides of the desk, and sometimes on the tops of the books. And when the Fessor sat down he would take a little pile of white paper, and a stick with a shining thing at the end that I afterwards learned was a pen, and he would dip it into a bottle full of queer smelling black water and then scratch the wet pen back and forth over the paper, so quickly that it used to make my little head swim to watch him. And the noise! It was simply aggravating beyond words--that is, a tiny bird’s words. How I did hate that pen and that scratching noise! But I’m not going to tell you about that now. I shall have a good deal to tell you about that pen later on.

Well, to go back to the room. By the side of the desk, on the left, was a great tall case full of what the Fessor called books. Every once in a while he would jump up from his seat in a hurry and make one big stride to that case, quickly look over the backs of the books, then seize one, put it on his desk, and begin to turn over the sheets of paper of which it was composed. And his eyes would sparkle and shine sometimes, and at others his brow would wrinkle and his lips pucker up, so that I knew something was going on, whenever he reached for one of those books. The books in front of him he often took out and opened and read from them. Then he would talk to himself and say “Yes!” and “No!” or “I don’t think so!” or “I guess he’s way off,” and then his fingers would grab the pen, dab! it would go into the black water, and over the paper it flew like the dancing shadows that I used to watch sometimes when I was in my nest in the tree.

On one side of the room was a flat thing perched on four legs as high as the desk, called a table. The top of this was covered with more books and papers and photographs. Sometimes Fessor would put me on this table, and I used to go around and explore everything. In one corner of the room was a high pile of boxes, with shelves in them, on which were piled loose papers and more books and things. Such big boxes they were, and so deep, and such piles and piles of things in them! This afterwards became my playhouse and my hiding-place. My! what fun I had in it sometimes, and how glad I was to have it when I found out what a good hiding-place it was.

There were also some Indian baskets in the room, as well as a closet in which were piles of little boxes and a large leather case in which was a thing Fessor called his camera.

Of course, I didn’t find out about all these things at once. I’m just telling you all about them now, so that you will understand, and I shan’t have to tell you again.

The first night I went to nest in the house was a strange experience. Now just look what I’ve said: “Went to nest.” You see a little bird doesn’t think of going to bed, as boys and girls do. She goes to her nest. But there was no nest in Fessor’s den. He was too big to get into one if there had been one, and when it began to grow dark I wondered what would become of me. To be all alone in that dark, dark room would be terrible; and there was no getting to any other birds owing to that shut window. But I needn’t have been afraid. For, just as I was working myself up into a good deal of excitement, Fessor came in, and after giving me some more warm bread and milk,--which made me feel so comfortable and so sleepy,--he said: “And now, little birdie, I’ll have to find a bed for you.” Then I watched him from the desk, where he had placed me, and he got a large Indian basket, and after putting some soft white rags at the bottom, he caught me--though I tried to hop away--and putting me down amongst the rags, he wrapped me up in one of them, and then covered me up as snug and warm as could be. When he went away it was not long before I fell asleep.

Well! he used to do this every night for quite a long time, so that I soon got used to going to bed in the basket, instead of being in my nest, and slept as well as I had ever done before.

It was very strange that he should have hit upon the same name for me in his human talk as my father and mother had in their bird talk, yet it was so. I believe it was the second day after he brought me home that Mamma said to him: “What shall you call your baby bird?” In a moment Fessor replied: “Oh, I’ve already called her Scraggles. She is Scraggles, so she must be called Scraggles.” So, even in man’s speech, I’ve been Scraggles ever since.

Chapter III

My Second Week in the House

Ah, that second week! What a good week it was to me! It changed all my life and made a happy little bird out of me. I lost all my fear of Fessor and Mamma and Edith, and from then on we were the dearest and best of friends. Talk about my father and mother, and my loving them! Even though they were birds, they never showed me the love that this second week taught me was in the hearts of my three human friends. So I want to tell you all about it.

I believe it began that very night Fessor put me in the basket. For, though he was not so gentle as my mother was, somehow I felt that he felt more gentle towards me, and so, though I was still very much afraid of him, I began to get a new feeling in me that seemed to drive some of the fear away.

Then came the pinion nuts. Now, you needn’t laugh! It certainly was those pinion nuts that had a great deal to do with it. As you no doubt know, the pinion is a kind of small pine tree that grows “Out West,” and it has a tiny white nut in it that I have heard Fessor say is “the sweetest nut in existence.” Now I don’t know what “in existence” means, but I do know that the little white nut he gave me was the most delicious morsel I had ever tasted in my life. And how do you think he gave it to me? I think he must have been a mother-bird once, for he did as near like what my own mother used to do as he could. He chewed up the nut until it was all soft and sweet and warm, and then gave me a piece of it. It was so good! oh, so good! and when I cheeped for some more, he put his lips down to me with a large piece of nut all ready for me to eat. Well, at first I didn’t know just what to do. He had such a long black beard, and his moustaches almost covered his lips, that I felt “kind o’ scared,” yet when I looked up into his large dark eyes, they beamed upon me so kindly and gently that I thought I would risk it; so I made a quick dash at the nut, got a bill full, and then drew back.

Fessor laughed at me and said: “You poor, scared little thing!” And he said it so gently that I felt comforted; and so, when he came near to me again with his lips full of nut, I went quite courageously up and pecked away several times.

From that day on I never seemed to be really afraid of him. Sometimes the old fear came back for a little while, and I scampered and hid behind the desk; and at other times, when he tried to pick me up, I would instinctively run from him; and if he followed me too quickly, I would spring from the desk and go fluttering to the floor. But, you see, that was because he didn’t understand I was a little, tiny bird, and had to get used to him by degrees. When he moved quietly and gently I didn’t get scared; but I suppose it takes a big man a long time to learn to move easily and gently as a bird does.

Every night he put me to bed in the Indian basket, wrapping me up as carefully and tenderly as if I were his own baby, all the time telling me in man talk that I needn’t be afraid of him, and that he wouldn’t hurt me for the world.

One day I had quite an exciting experience. I heard Fessor say to Edith: “I’m sure this little birdie ought to have some fresh, out-door air. I’m going to take her out. Come with me and see that she doesn’t get away.” Now I had never thought of such a thing until he suggested it. Of course, I had been uncomfortable in the house, and I wished often that I had had a loving father and mother with a home nest of my own to which I could go, but, since they had so heartlessly deserted me, I had not thought of trying to get away from my kind human friends.

Yet it was wonderfully strange how I felt as soon as I got out-of-doors. A new-old something seemed to come into me, and I’m quite sure that if my wings had been strong enough, I should have flown away regardless of what Fessor had thought or said. I did hop and flutter and try to run into the tall grass, and I tried--oh! how I tried--to fly. But it was all in vain. They were very kind to me, yet would not allow me to run into the grass and hide, as I wanted. I scratched around on the ground a little, and then Fessor snapped his thumb and finger--a thing he often did--and said: “Now, little Scraggles, I think it’s quite time you went in again.”