CHAPTER I.

[Illustration] I belong to the Canary family, and that is a very good old family as everybody very well knows. The first that I can remember of anything was the time that I was taken away from my mother and brothers and sisters. A little girl came with a basket after me. She had on a blue dress and a white sunbonnet, and her name was Rita. I was frightened almost to death, and screamed with all my might when she took hold of me; my mother screamed too, and spread out her wings and scolded, but it did no good. I was hurried into the basket, the cover shut down tight, and there I was in the dark. It was dreadful. I could hardly breathe.

[Illustration: A LITTLE GIRL CAME WITH A BASKET.]

When she got home, she took me out of the basket and put me in a small wire cage. I curled up in one corner, and did not dare to look about me for a long time. They brought me some supper, but I would not taste it. I was only just learning to feed myself; my dear mother used to feed me nice bits from her bill; my heart swelled right up in my throat. I could not have eaten if I had tried.

When it began to grow dark, I cried as hard as I could: we used to cuddle down under mother's wings and go to sleep; I thought my heart would break. Towards morning I tucked my bill in my neck, and snugged down in a heap with one foot under me and got a little sleep.

I was wakened next morning by the sun shining right into my cage. I was glad of it, for I had been quite cold. My feathers were not so very thick yet. Pretty soon two little girls, Rita and her sister Dody, came and talked to me. Dody was a little bit of a round-faced girl, with bright blue eyes and red cheeks.

I loved her right away. She said "Poor birdie!" and her voice was as sweet as my little sister's voice when she said "peep" to me in the mornings. They stood and looked at me a long time, and talked about me. "How bright his eyes are!" they said, and, "What funny little feet!" "How pretty he will be when he gets all his feathers." Then their mother called, "Children, come to breakfast," and they ran off.

I ate a very few seeds for my breakfast, and drank a little water. Then I tried to dress my feathers just as I had seen my dear mother do hers, but mine would not lie down smoothly. After breakfast they came back and talked to me again, but I never gave a single chirp in answer. It was a long, sad day, and I was glad when night came again.

Just as I was going to bed, Dody came to the cage with her hands full of little fixings. I wondered what she was going to do. I flew up on the top perch and watched her. She opened the door, and in one corner of my floor she put a piece of cotton, soft stuff like thistledown. Then she spread some pieces of white flannel on it, and covered it with a piece of pink stuff. Then what did she do but catch me and try to put me in the little bed she had made.

I tried my best to make her know that birds didn't sleep in beds, but she kept saying, "Poor Puffy was tired! Shall have a nice bed, so he shall."

So she put me on the soft little bed, and spread the blanket and the pink thing over me; then she took her hand off and I flew right back to my perch.

"Why, Puffy!" she said. "You musn't do so."

Then we had another hard time. Her little hand chased me about the cage till I was ready to drop, but she got me. She put me in the bed again and held me down. She tucked the blanket around me, and said:

"Dear Puff, it's a very cold night; little birdies will freeze if they don't cover up. Dody wants you to learn to sleep in a bed, just as she does. That's no way to rest; get way up on a perch, and stand on one foot, and stick your head in your feathers way behind you. I'll just tell you, Puffy, we ain't going to have any such uncomfortable works in this house. Now be still, and I'll sing you to sleep."

I wish I could tell you just how she looked while she sat there singing her sweet little hymn:

"Hush my dear, lie still and slumber, Holy angels guard thy bed."

Her singing was so sweet, and she looked so loving! If anybody could make me sleep in a bed she could, but I wasn't going to do it not even for her. I thought I should smother, bundled up there, and I knew I was right, for my mother began to teach us to sleep on a perch. I kept still, though. It was no use to flutter; she only squeezed me the harder. Pretty soon she thought I was asleep. She softly raised her hand, and I popped up quick as wink and was back on my top perch in no time. Then poor Dody cried. I felt sorry for her, but I couldn't help it. Her mother came in then, and explained it all out nice to her and she felt better.

They all sat around then, looking at me and talking about me. They tried to find a name for me. One said "Billy," and another said "Dick." "Call him 'Goldy,' he is so yellow," Rita said. But their mother said, "Better call him Puff; he looks just like a little puff ball." They clapped their hands and cried out, "So we will; that's a sweet little name." I never forgot my name from that day to this. I couldn't, I heard it so much.

It was a pretty little home that I had come to. There was no fine furniture in it, but it was snug and warm, the fire was always bright and everybody looked sunshiny. Even when the wind blew and the snow flew, it always seemed as if the sun shone in that room. I think one reason was because everything went on smoothly, and there was a good deal of singing. Rita and Dody sang all their little songs, and evenings and Sundays their father and mother sang with them.

I never shall forget the day I began to sing myself. I didn't know I could. I remember the very first song—Rita and Dody were singing it. It was "Blooming May makes all gay."

It made the girls almost wild with joy when I piped out a few little notes, no louder than a katydid's. They said, "He's going to be a singer! Isn't that nice?"

And they ran and told their mother, and she came and stood looking at me a long time. But I didn't sing a word while she was there. Somehow I couldn't when they were all watching me so. They told all the neighbors, too, and when their father came from his work, they ran to meet him the first thing. I never could see why they made such an ado over it. I thought birds were made on purpose to sing, and of course they all did. But now that I come to think of it, my dear mother did not sing. My father did all the singing in our family. She chirped a little, but it was sweeter than any singing to me.

The cold winter went away and spring came. My cage was hung out of doors under the apple-tree every day now, and here was a beautiful new world, made of soft blue and pretty green and white blossoms. What a lovely spot my home was! A little brown house, with tall old trees around it, standing on a green hill sloping down on one side to a little brook that rattled and hurried over the stones. The trees were covered with pink and white blossoms, and the air was soft and sweet.

There was a wide porch where everybody came to get cool, so I had plenty of company. There were other birds, too, who came often to the apple-tree. I was afraid of them at first, but I soon got over that. One by the name of Jenny Wren, built a nest just in the corner, at the top of the porch. I enjoyed her society very much.

I grew very fast, and could sing almost as well as the birds that came in the trees and sang in the mornings. I began to be very happy, too, and to like my new home. Rita and Dody loved me so much, and I loved them. They always ran to me the first thing when they came from school. They brought me fresh chickweed and lumps of sugar, and sometimes a bit of orange or apple, and I ate it right from their fingers. It was good, too.

There is one thing that I never could understand, and that is why they do not give us oranges to eat all the time when we like them better and they are so much easier to eat than seeds. I do get very tired getting the shells off from my seeds. I would have much more time to sing, if I did not have to keep pecking away at those hard old things all the time. It is a very hard way to earn one's living, I think. And yet it is not so bad as it might be, for my friends in the apple-tree tell me that nobody brings them anything at all, that they pick up their eating just where they can. Sometimes they get plenty, and sometimes not. They eat bugs and worms and all such vile things. Pah! I am sure I should not like that. But then it must be nice to spread one's wings and fly away up into the blue, and sit and swing on a bough of a tall tree.

[Illustration: THEY EAT BUGS.]

One morning the little girls brought me some news. They told me that a rich lady who lived down in the village, was going away with all her family for a month, and that she was going to pay them for taking care of her bird while she was gone.

"So you see you are going to have company, Puffy," Rita said. "I'm going to bring him home to-night, and you must be sure to have your feathers all smoothed down nicely, and your best manners on, for he's very stylish, Puffy, and he lives in a great, grand house ten times as big as ours."

That day seemed very long to me, and I dressed my feathers a great many times, and tried to look my best. I grew very restless as it drew near to four o'clock, and hopped up and down stairs till I was all tired out; for you must know my little house is three stories high. There is the first floor, then the first perch, where I stand to reach my seeds and water, and the second one where I sleep nights, and that makes three stories, besides the attic where my swing is.

[Illustration: ON THE BOUGH OF A TALL TREE.]

Pretty soon I heard the gate click. I peeped through the leaves. Yes! There he was coming, sure enough—the grand company bird. My heart fluttered so I could hardly breathe, but I flew up-stairs with all speed, curled down on my feet, puffed out my feathers, and tried to look as if I didn't care.

"Here he is, Puff," Rita said, as she came up the steps of the porch with a pretty cage in her hand. "This is Fred, Puffy; why don't you make a bow to him?"

I straightened myself up then and looked at him, and he looked at me, but neither of us spoke. I forgot all about manners. Rita hung his cage very near mine, and went away, and we went on staring at each other. He was a handsome fellow, large, and yellow as buttercups. I thought he looked proud, he stood up so tall and stiff, and snapped his black eyes at me, just as if he were poking fun at something. Then he went up to his highest perch and sat and looked and looked.

I had always thought my cage was a cosey little home until his great gilt one was put by the side of it. Then I began to feel ashamed of my little house, so very small and plain. I remembered just then what Rita said about manners; so I chirped a few times to him in a friendly way, to let him know he was welcome. He never answered my chirps at all, but just kept on staring, and I could feel that he was looking me over from head to foot, as if he were measuring every feather I had on. Of course I could not make as good an appearance as he did; I hadn't had so much time to grow in.

All at once he jumped up on the highest perch he had and began to sing with all his might. He trilled and warbled and went up and down the scale, in and out and every way, and when he came to the high notes, he opened his mouth as wide as he could and screamed. He certainly had a very powerful voice, but not a sweet one. When he went up so high it was just yelling, and that's all you can call it.

When he had finished, he cocked his head on one side and looked at me out of the corner of his eye, as much as to say, "There! Did you ever hear anything like that?"