United States or Chad ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"He mends our boots, and tells us stories, and he's got a bird named Coppertoes." "So you are a friend of my boys," said father. "Ay. And they're grand little lads, sir. I have a daughter of my own I'm very proud of, sir. She was lost for seventeen years, and your sons helped me to find her." His daughter came to the door then to call him to breakfast.
"Well, if she is, faith! 'tis yersilves has kilt her." "She's just in a swoond," asserted Mrs. Coe, calmly. "Wot she needs is brandy. Yus, and terbaccer smoke blowed dahn 'er froat." Mrs. Handsomebody moaned. "Better get her out of here," suggested Angel, his eye on Coppertoes who, sated by bloodshed, lay with wings outstretched, panting on the floor of the case. "Thrue," agreed Mary Ellen.
Coppertoes squatted beneath his swing, striking it angrily with his shoulders so that it swung violently. All the other birds were silent.
When Martindale and I were left alone, he cautiously opened the door into the passage, peered out, and then returned. He said softly: "Little Master, I've got to get rid of Coppertoes. She's turned against him. She says he comes out of his cage of nights, and flies about the house, pecking at the food, and trying to make a nest in her hair.
Coppertoes was busy with the owl, when a piercing scream came from behind me. I turned and found Mrs. Handsomebody gazing with horrified fascination at the orgy under glass. She took three steps forward, her eyes starting with horror. "Come to life " she gasped, in a strangled voice "after all these years and gone stark mad."
"And shut the dure afther ye, and make yersilves scarce till tea-time, like good childer, do." Mrs. Handsomebody was borne away by Mary Ellen and Mrs. Coe, the latter still muttering "terbaccer smoke dahn 'er froat." We restored Coppertoes to his wicker cage, and wrapping it in an antimacassar, hid it beneath the piano.
Might he not be made to believe that they were a foreign breed that never chirped or left their perches? Anything was better than the dark and loneliness. And if he chose to sing I was sure he could not be heard through that heavy door. Like a ghost I went in and shut the door behind me. I held his wicker cage against the glass case. "Coppertoes," I whispered, "Other birds! Aren't they pretty?
Want to get in an' play with them, old chap? See the pretty oriole? An' the owl, Coppertoes. Lovebirds, too. Want to get in, little fellow? Such a bully big cage you never saw." I opened the door of the glass case, and cautiously introduced the bird cage. I opened the door of the cage. Coppertoes paid no heed but busied himself in pecking sharply at his lump of sugar.
Only the clock ticked ponderously. The house was cold, and Coppertoes seemed suddenly very fragile. How lonely he would be! I stared at the closed door of the parlour, thinking what a shame that the stuffed birds in there were not alive, so they might be company for him. Still he was very young and had not seen much of the world.
Handsomebody, herself, was dusting the case of stuffed birds, whose plumage, sadly thinned by the attentions of Coppertoes, seemed to quiver with expectancy. We were instructed to wait inside the iron gate, at the front, until train time, when we were to be recalled to the parlour, and take our places on three chairs, already ranged in a row for us. Thus we were to be displayed by Mrs.
Word Of The Day