CHAPTER III.

[Illustration] I DID stop, though, very soon, to rest me. I didn't think when I saw the other birds skim through the air that flying would tire me so. I kept going on toward the blue, but the white clouds seemed just as far off as when I started.

I came to a lovely garden and stood on a honeysuckle vine a few minutes to rest myself. The vine clambered over a porch, and I heard voices talking and laughing. I was enjoying myself very much snuffing the sweet air from the honeysuckle, when a hand came softly down over me and drew me in through the vines.

It was so sudden I had no time to get away, and my heart fluttered with fear. The hand was soft and white, and I found when I dared to look up that the owner of it was a beautiful young lady. She was dressed in gauzy white stuff, and was such a pretty creature that I thought I should like to stay with her always.

"Do see what I have found," she said to another lady. "A darling little canary."

Then there gathered about me ever so many ladies dressed in silks and jewels. They talked to me and called me a beauty, and wondered if I could sing.

One lady called a girl, and said, "Angeline, go up in the attic and bring down that old bird-cage."

Then they put me in it and the lady said, "Hang it in the dining-room."

It was near a window that I was placed, and not long after I saw the pretty young lady who caught me, get in a carriage and go away.

I heard them say, "Better take your bird home with you."

But she said, "No, if nobody comes to claim him, he shall belong to Rose."

And who was Rose? I did not find out that night for I soon went to sleep, tired out with my journey. I had time in the morning to look about me before the rest got up. Here I was at last in a large fine house such as Fred told me about. I could see through into the parlor, and there were the lace curtains and pictures, and ever so many pretty things. It was better than being free to live in such a place. I was almost wild with joy. I sung at the top of my voice, and swelled out my feathers till I was three times as big as usual. I should never have any more trouble; everybody would praise me, and I should have everything I wanted. I thought there was only one thing lacking to make me perfectly happy. I wanted a big gold cage like Fred's.

While I was watching them set out the table in a scarlet and white cloth, and china and silver, just wonderful to see, a little girl danced into the room and came toward me.

"Good morning, little birdie," she said. "What's your name? My name's Rose."

Her voice was low and sweet, and she looked like one of the little pinkish-white roses that clamber over the porch at Dody's house. Her eyes were blue, like the sky, and her gold hair hung on her shoulders in pretty waves. I was glad I belonged to Rose. I was just thinking what a nice place I had come to, when I heard a great noise and a boy burst into the room with a whoop and a yell. I trembled when I saw him, for I had heard about boys. He was short and chubby, with very black eyes and hardly no hair on his head—I guess his feathers hadn't grown out.

"Hulloa!" he said. "Who's this?"

Then he poked his fingers through the wires and hooted at me, and kept me flurrying about from side to side, frightened almost to death.

Rose said, "Please, Rob, don't tease him. See, he's afraid, poor birdie!"

He paid no attention to her, though, and I was glad when the breakfast bell called him away. After breakfast both he and Rose went off to school.

It was pretty quiet all day. The dining-room was darkened to keep out the flies, and nobody brought me any nice little bit to eat. I had nothing but seeds and water. I missed my cuttle-bone and my chickweed. I began to be lonely, and to wish I could see Dody. Then I sat and thought just how the little room looked with the roses peeping in at the window. I could see my empty cage hanging there, and dear Dody sad and lonely. A little whisper from somewhere asked me whether I did right to run away, and if, after all, I was going to like my new home so very much better than the old. But I hushed it up with a very loud song.

In a few days something happened. Angeline cane walking in with a great beautiful gilt cage in her hand, larger and handsomer than Fred's even. She opened its door, then she opened my door and put the open doors close together. I stood and looked at it in great astonishment and delight.

Then Angeline said, "Why don't you go in, you little goose?"

I didn't like being called a goose, nor did I think it was a polite way to invite me. But I stepped in, and she shut the door and carried the old cage away. Then she took the new cage into the back parlor, and fastened it on a pretty gilt chain that hung down from the ceiling between the lace curtains of the window. There! Now I had everything just as I wanted it. Was it I, or somebody else, in that great bright cage among the lace curtains, looking out on the gay street? I danced up-stairs and down, and strutted about and tried to look like Fred. I nibbled the cuttle-bone, and took a seed and a drink of water, and tried to sing a little to express my feelings. But, somehow, it seemed as if my throat was all swelled up. I couldn't sound a note.

[Illustration: A DRINK OF WATER.]

You would think that then, surely, I was perfectly happy, with everything so nice and a dear little mistress who loved me. But, oh, that boy! I knew as soon as I saw him that my troubles had begun. He seemed to have a great many names. Most of the time it was "Bob," but Rose called him "Rob." When he was going to bed his mother said, "Good-night, Robbie," and his father said "Robert!" when he was naughty, and that was most of the time. Saturdays he nearly tortured the life out of me. He would catch me, and squeeze me till I was almost choked. He would poke at my eyes, and open my mouth and try to get hold of my tongue. I tried to get away from him. If I could, I would have gone out of the window and left everything, and never have come back. Schools ought not to have Saturdays. Rose was in school all the week, and Saturdays she often went to visit her cousins, so nobody knew how the naughty boy tormented me.

I began to find out that Fred had told only the bright side of things. As the weeks passed away, I got tired of the life I led. It was fun at first to watch the people pass, but at last I got very tired watching them come and go, come and go all day long. Some of them looked cross, and some looked sad, and nobody looked very happy. It wasn't half so nice, after all, as hanging under the apple-tree and having calls from the other birds that flew about. Here no birds came to see me, except one ill-natured old sparrow, and he came to pick a quarrel with me. He would dart at my cage when the window was open, his mouth stretched and his eyes fierce as cat's eyes, I learned how to manage him after a while. I would just get back in the further corner of my cage, keep perfectly still, and look at him. So he got ashamed of himself and left me in peace. That was one of my troubles. I had others.

Some days I nearly starved. Everybody would go off and forget me. Not a drop of fresh water, not a seed in my cup, I thought many a day I should die before night. I would get so weak I couldn't sing, and I sat sad and cross and remembered how Rita and Dody never forgot me once. Rose would have seen to me if her mother had allowed her to, but I was left to the care of servants, and Rose went to school very early and did not know how badly I was treated. There were days, though, when I had everything and more too; sugar and orange and berries and cake. Then I often made myself sick. I would rather have had something steady, even if it was plain.

I was very lonely, too. Nobody seemed to have time to give me a kind word. Once when I had sung one of my best songs and did the high notes beautifully, a young man sitting in the room reading a newspaper, said, "What a horrid screecher that bird is. He ought to have his neck wrung!"

Think of that when I had been doing my best to please him! I didn't sing any more for a good many days. I just stood on my highest perch, and looked into the street to see if I couldn't see Rita and Dody coming to take me home. Day after day I tired myself all out watching, but they never came. It was dusty in that window, too. My eyes and nose were full of it. I thought of the pure air in my other home; how sweet the roses smelled in the porch; and Rita and Dody were there and I was not. Oh! If I had only been content in the dear little place. Now I never should see it again. They were better folks, too, in the little house. They never spoke angry words to each other. But in this house I heard a great many; besides there were no prayers and hymns there.

I had worse enemies, too, than Bob, I found out after awhile. One day, when Angeline took me into the kitchen to clean my cage, she left me standing on the kitchen table while she talked with another girl that put her head over the back fence. I was looking about the room, when to my horror I saw stretched out behind the stove a great long gray cat. I kept as still as a mouse—hardly breathed. It was dreadful! What if she should wake up? I had heard awful stories about cats.

I never took my eyes from her. Sure enough she did wake up just then. She stretched herself and washed her face, and then got up and walked about. I kept still. I didn't dare to scream as long as she had not seen me. All of a sudden she turned her head and saw me. Oh, what frightful big yellow eyes she had! She gave one great bound and sprang up on the table. Then I screamed loud and sharp, and Angeline rushed in, just as that dreadful monster had her paw raised all ready to strike at me.

Angeline took a broom and sent that cat out of the door pretty fast. Then she talked real nice to me, and comforted me, and I thought more of her than I ever did before.

[Illustration: THEN THEY HAD A DOG.]

Then they had a dog, too. He was another trouble. He was white as snow, and had little curls all over him, and wore a blue ribbon around his neck. His name was Beauty. He didn't act very beautiful. He tormented me too. He would jump up towards me, and bark furiously whenever he came into the parlor. I did not really think he could catch me, but it made me nervous.

The only happy moments I ever had was when I was alone with dear Rose. She was so gentle, and seemed to love me so much. She would put her face to mine and say low, sweet words. She called me "Tina," after the pretty young lady. Her name was Christina. Sometimes Rose took me to her room. Then she would open my cage door and tell me to fly. She shut all the windows first, or I think I should have run away again to get rid of my tormentors. But I did have good times in her room. I flew all about and it rested me. I sat on her pretty white bed, and on the tops of chairs, and walked all over the bureau and saw myself in the mirror.

[Illustration: GRANDMA AND ROSE.]

I thought at first that I was meeting a stranger. I said to myself, "That's a good-looking little fellow; wonder who he is?" Then I bowed and talked to him, and he, impertinent fellow, just mimicked me for everything I did and said. Then I scolded at him, and he scolded back.

[Illustration: SAW MYSELF IN A MIRROR.]

I began to feel cross, and I was just getting ready to fight him when Rose said, "Why, Tina, that's yourself!" And grandma who sat in the room said, "He's as foolish as some touchy boys and girls are; ready to quarrel with their own shadows." Then I can tell you I felt ashamed.

Grandma was another good friend of mine. She always made Bob let me alone when she happened to be in the room with us, and she began to look after me every day, and see if I had some nice little bit to eat. Whenever she ate an orange, she always gave a piece to me. She was a pretty old lady. Her hair was white as snow. She wore black silk dresses and white lace caps, and her face looked as if everything was just as she liked to have it.