CHAPTER II.

[Illustration] I WENT on cracking seeds as if I didn't hear him, but after he had performed two or three times like that, I thought I would show him I could sing a little, too. I knew I could, for people often stopped at the gate as they passed, and said to each other, "What a sweet singer that bird is!"

I had heard the wild birds sing so much that I had caught many of their airs; so while he was taking his supper, I tuned up. I did my very best. I was surprised at myself.

Fred was surprised, too. He dropped the seed he was biting in two, and glared fiercely at me. Then his wings began to drop down, and he looked very mad. Then he spread his wings till he looked like a great bat, and flew at the side of his cage as if he would dash right through it, and fly at me. I sung away, and he chattered and scolded and tried his best to get out. I was glad he couldn't. I should not have liked him to come to my cage as mad as he was then.

When I got to the end of my song, I stopped and gave him a little piece of my mind. I don't know how I dared to speak so to a stranger, but I guess I was a little out of patience myself.

[Illustration]

I think Fred was all worn out, for he went to bed soon after. I did not go to sleep right away, though I went to my chamber. Somehow I didn't feel so happy as I usually did. I knew I had not been polite or kind to Fred, and I had been jealous and vain. I did not sleep well. I had bad dreams. When I woke in the night, I was afraid. I heard cats walking round I thought. I thought I would try to be a very good little bird to-morrow.

When I woke again, the sun was shining, and Fred was already stirring. He seemed to have forgotten how cross he had been. He said "Good morning," and chirped away quite pleasantly.

After we had eaten breakfast, and taken a bath and dressed ourselves, we sung. We sung together, just as loud and high as we could yell. My throat was almost split, but I wasn't going to let him beat me. For the first few days we did not get along very well. Fred was very quick-tempered. He would spread his wings and open his mouth as if to swallow me, if I said the least thing to provoke him.

Some days we had very good times. Our cages hung so near that we could talk together all we pleased. Fred told me about his life when he was at home; how he hung between lace curtains in a pretty window of a large, fine house, and watched people pass all day long. And there were a great many visitors, and they all said, "What a beautiful bird!" and "What a wonderful singer!" And he had cake and candy, just as much as he wanted, and oranges and bananas, and they had a piano, and when they played, he sang with it, and people said it was as good as a concert. He said it was very dull in that little old brown house, and he wondered I didn't die.

And one day when he felt very good-natured, he told me that I was very handsome, and that I had a wonderful voice, and that I ought to be out in the world where people would admire me. He said, too, that it was a shame to give me nothing but seeds and water to eat; that they were mean, stingy people to treat me so. I did not like to hear him talk in that way about my dear Rita and Dody, who were always so kind to me. But when I came to think it over, it did seem as if I had been treated badly, and I felt cross when Dody filled my seed-cup. I wouldn't touch one for quite a while.

I sat and pouted half the morning, and Dody thought I was sick. She went and told her mother how I acted. Her mother was looking over lettuce for dinner; beautiful green leaves they were—oh! How I wanted to get my bill into it.

Her mother said, "Poor Puffy, he needs something fresh and green. Give him a leaf of lettuce."

So she did—a lovely curly, tender leaf. I was going at it at once, but I waited to see what Fred would do with his leaf. I was afraid he might laugh at me if I ate lettuce. But when I saw him eat his as if he liked it very much, I began on mine. It was so good. In a few days after that the cherries were ripe, and we each had a fresh one every morning. I felt ashamed of being so bad and talking as I had, when a great red juicy cherry was given me every day.

[Illustration: WHAT A LOVELY SPOT MY HOME WAS.]

"I can tell you what it is," said Fred one morning, as he was nibbling a big cherry, "it must be a very nice thing to get just as many of these as you want. Think of our sleeping up in that big tree, all tucked in among the leaves, then in the morning making a breakfast of cherries, and away we'd go sailing off just where we please! No cage for us any more! See here, Puff," and Fred came to the side of his cage, and poked his head away out through the wires and spoke low, "let's you and me run away!"

[Illustration: MAKING A BREAKFAST OF CHERRIES.]

The idea of such a thing almost took my breath away. I looked up in the blue sky. The white clouds were floating along softly. What if we could escape and fly away up, up, and stand on that soft cloud, and sail along, sail along, through the blue forever! It would be lovely. Just then Rita and Dody came to bring us chickweed, and we had not time to talk about it. But when the time came for our evening song, instead of singing a low, soft hymn, we talked again about running away. Fred talked so much and so fast, that before I knew it I had promised to try to escape. We made up our minds that we would go in the morning.

"The sooner we are off the better," Fred said, "for this is the grandest time in the year. Everything is ripe—cherries and berries, and we shall find hosts of friends as soon as we get out. I was talking with Mr. Wren only yesterday, and he promised to help us in any way he could."

We sat up very late that night laying our plans. We decided to slip out when the cage doors were opened to change the water in our bath-tubs.

"Be quick as a wink when the time comes," Fred said. "Whoever gets out first will wait on the top of that tall lilac for the other. Good-night! We must be off to sleep now, so as to be ready for morning. And don't you go and back out. Have some spirit about you; as if a creature with wings ought to live in a cage, like a poor little mean mouse!"

Then Fred stretched himself up tall, and looked very proud. He bounded into his swing in high spirits, and soon swung himself to sleep. But I couldn't sleep. It seemed dreadful to be going out into the great wide world all alone. Perhaps the cats would get us, or a bad boy shoot us. I could hear the dogs barking, and everything seemed dark and gloomy. I wished I hadn't promised to go. Dody told me once that God took care of little birds, but I couldn't feel sure about it that night. I started at every noise I heard. I was very unhappy.

It was a long night, but morning came at last. Dody was up bright and early. She brought Fred and me each a beautiful fresh clover blossom the first thing she did. Much as I loved clover, I couldn't bear to taste it, I felt so bad, thinking of what we meant to do. I couldn't eat much breakfast, for when I heard the little breakfast bell tinkle, I knew it would be time to start in a little while. I always had sung at prayers, but I couldn't that morning. Dody sat in her little rocking-chair and sung from her hymnbook as hard as she could. It was a sweet hymn, and a tune I liked. But I could not sing a note, and she kept looking at me as if she wanted to know why. Fred sang louder than anybody.

It was but a few minutes afterwards that the girls came to attend to us. They carried our cages out on the back porch, and brought the seed-box and fresh water. Rita tended to me that morning, and Dody took Fred. Dody turned her back just a minute to get the seeds. Fred's door was open a little bit, and he stood down close by it waiting his chance. He slipped out as swift as a butterfly! Dody gave a scream, but Fred spread his wings and went way, way up. How beautifully he soared along. I wished I was with him. I had no chance to get out myself, for Rita shut my door tight and went off trying to catch Fred.

[Illustration: FRED SPREAD HIS WINGS.]

Everybody shouted and ran here and there. The neighbors all came over, and one said, "I see him!" and another cried, "There he is!" and at last somebody said, "Here he comes on top of the lilac. Hand me his cage and I'll get up on the fence and hold it towards him. Maybe he'll go in!"

[Illustration]

Maybe he didn't! Naughty Fred flew up in the tip-top branch of the maple, and swung gayly back and forth, just as if he greatly enjoyed seeing a woman on the fence with a red face turned up to the sky, and an empty bird-cage in her hand. He only stayed a minute, then he flew far away and was never seen again.

Dody cried as if her heart would break. When I saw how badly everybody felt about Fred's getting away, I couldn't make up my mind to try to go that day. I couldn't go if I had tried, for Rita opened and shut my door in a flash when she waited upon me. I suppose Fred was vexed at me because I didn't come. Rita and Dody and their mother spent nearly all that day out doors looking for him, and they kept his cage hanging out for him a good many days, but he did not come.

[Illustration: DODY CRIED AS IF HER HEART WOULD BREAK.]

I missed Fred very much, and felt discontented and unhappy. I did not enjoy life as I did before he came. I was all the time wishing and longing to be somewhere else, and to have things I had not. I did not sing any more. I moped. I thought if I could live in a big, handsome house, such as Fred told me about, and have a golden cage and all those new things to eat, and see people passing back and forth all day, then I should be happy. How could I be expected to content myself always in this back place, seeing nothing all day long but trees and birds and two or three people?

[Illustration: RITA.]

Sometimes I thought about following Fred, but I felt a little afraid to go alone. I heard them say that perhaps the cats or dogs had killed him by this time: But I kept thinking of all he had told me, and I made up my mind at last that I would not be a prisoner any more. I would get out and see the world. So now I spent all my time in planning how it should be done. It would not be an easy thing to do. Rita and Dody were so very careful they never left my door open a second. You may wonder how it was that I could make up my mind to leave my dear friends, but when one begins to go wrong, I guess nothing is of any account but the thing they want to do. So night and day I thought and contrived how to escape.

One pleasant afternoon when the little girls got home from school, they came to pet me. They brought a great treat they thought. It was a piece of banana. I wanted to taste it and see what it was like, but I sat sulkily in one corner, and never touched it. They talked to me, but I wouldn't answer.

"Oh dear," said Dody, "he's sick, I know he is."

Her little hot face looked so tired after her long walk, I ought to have been ashamed of myself for acting so.

"Shut the windows and let him out for a little while," her mother said. "That will rest him."

So she took my cage into the dining-room, and opened the door. I flew right out and alighted on the window-sill. I went straight to the window, because, I knew something that I guess Dody had forgotten. There was a hole in one of the dining-room windows, just a little one, no bigger than Dody's hand.

[Illustration]

"You stay here, Puffy," Dody said, "and I'll get you some nice cold water, and you'll feel better, birdie dear. I always do when I take a bath."

No sooner had she shut the door than I rushed up to the broken window, and out I went! I was free—free as the wind!

I waited just a minute on the rose bush, and peeped in to see Dody hunting under chairs and tables, and calling, "Where are you, Puffy!"

Then I said softly, "Good-by, dear Dody," and I spread my wings and away, away. I thought I never would stop till I got up into the beautiful blue and sat on one of those soft, white clouds.