Chapter II: The Story

“You may well ask me where I have been, Mr. Paroquet,” said the Red-bird, “but you can keep your Merry Christmas to yourself, for it is not a merry Christmas with me. My heart is as heavy as lead, and if it were not that I dreaded the cold so much, I’d fly to the North, where they are having a grand time to-day with their Christmas trees, and the children all so happy.”

“Fly to the North!” said Mr. Paroquet, with a shudder. “Fly to that horrid place where they have ice and snow the year round, with nothing green or bright, unless it’s that Christmas-tree you speak of! Pray, may I ask what kind of a tree that is? Is it like this magnolia, or that palm across the river, waving its fans in the breeze, or that orange-tree where you are sitting? And what kind of fruit does it bear? Icicles, or what?”

“Icicles!” And Mrs. Red laughed a merry, rippling kind of laugh which did me good to hear, for there was something very sad in the expression of her face, as if she had lost every friend she ever had. “Little you know of the North and what they have there. I’ll wager now you never heard of the place before.”

“Haven’t I, though?” Mr. Paroquet returned. “Didn’t one of those men from the North shoot the first Mrs. Paroquet one morning, just after breakfast, when she had gone out to take the air, and I was watching the three little birds in the nest? And didn’t he take her away to that place they call New York, and didn’t I hear afterward from a robin who comes down here every winter that they _stuffed_ her, and put glass eyes in her, and strung her on a wire frame, and set her up in somebody’s parlor for an ornament, to be admired? My dead wife _stuffed_!—and such a time as I had with the little ones, who kept tumbling out of the nest, and who had such appetites that I was almost worn out with hunting things for them to eat, and was obliged to get another Mrs. Paroquet to help me do the work. Of course, I know about the North; but pray go on and tell me how you happened to be there, and why you are here again.”

“Yes,” returned Mrs. Red, “I’d like to tell some body. You remember my old home up the river, where the stream is so narrow that the boats almost touch the shore as they pass. There’s a splendid mass of yellow jasmine there, with lots of white dogwood, and Cherokee roses, and orange-trees, and palms, and magnolias, and water oaks, and there I had my nest, all covered up with flowers and leaves.

“I was very happy in my soft, warm nest, with Mr. Red, and four of the prettiest little birds you ever saw just hatched and wanting a mother’s care so badly. But one morning I saw coming down the river one of those big boats, full of people, who kept firing at the poor alligators sunning themselves in the warm spring air. At last the boat stopped, and some of the men got out and began to look around and fire at anything they saw; and one shot hit me under my wing, so that I could not fly, but dropped to the ground, half dead with pain and fright, but still having sense enough to be glad that it was I who was hurt instead of Mr. Red, who flew away to the top of the very tallest palm-tree in sight, where he sat and watched while a man picked me up and said:

“‘See, she is not dead; she is only wounded. I shall take her to my wife at the hotel. She has wanted a Red-bird so much.’

“What a hotel was, or where he meant to take me, I did not know, and for a time I must have been unconscious, for the next I knew I was on the boat covered over with a kind of wire screen, which kept me a prisoner. I could not get away, though I beat my head against the screen until it ached almost as hard as the place under my wing.

“Oh! what a change it was from my lovely nest among the oranges, and magnolias, and jasmines, to that dreadful wooden box in which they put me at the hotel, and which they called a cage. I think my new mistress meant to be kind to me, for she stroked my feathers very gently, and called me a ‘poor little thing,’ and brought me so many things to eat. But I could touch none of them, I was so home-sick and lonely, and my heart was aching so for the dear home up the river, and the little birdies there, who were sure to cry for me when the dark night came on and I was not there to shelter them. Would Mr. Red do it? I wondered, and I was afraid he wouldn’t; for, though the very best of all the Red-birds on the St. John’s, he did not always like to be bothered with the children, especially when he was tired and a little cross.”

“But he did, though,” interrupted Mr. Paroquet. “He took care of them for quite a while after you went away. I used to see him hunting worms, and seeds and things; and he’d go every day to the top of that palm you spoke of, and watch to see if you were not coming back. After awhile—well, you remember old Mr. Red, whose nest was near yours on a sour orange-tree, and whose pretty little grand-daughter, Spotted-Wing, with the shining feathers and so many airs, you did not fancy much?

“Yes, I remember her,” Mrs. Red answered very sadly, I thought, and Mr. Paroquet continued:

“She used to fly up to that palm, too, and balance herself way out on the very tip of the longest green fan, and help him watch for _you_, because she was so anxious for you to come back and relieve him of his family cares, and then her eyes were younger than his, and could see farther, you know.”

And as he said this Mr. Paroquet rolled both of his eyes quite out of sight in what I thought a very disagreeable, insinuating manner. But Mrs. Red did not seem to notice, and went on with her story:

“I am glad if he was good to the children, and missed me a little, for I was so home-sick for him, that I could neither sleep nor eat, and I heard my mistress say she was afraid I would starve to death. And I was afraid, too, for had I been disposed to eat I could not have touched what she brought me—sweet potato, cake, and bread and sugar, as if that were proper diet for a bird. I had a great deal of attention from the guests of the hotel. It was the St. James, I heard them say, and it was full of people who did nothing but eat, and sleep, and dress for the parlors or the piazzas, where the young ones used to walk sometimes of an evening. At last, one morning very early, before anybody was up except a few of the servants, I was sitting on my perch in a new cage, with my head down, thinking so hard that I heard nothing until suddenly I was startled by a strange voice with a decidedly foreign accent, close to the bars of my cage.

“‘Halloo, Miss Red-top,’ it said, ‘seems to me you are down in the mouth this morning. Guess you didn’t sleep well. What’s the matter with you? Look up and speak to a fellow, can’t you?’

“So I looked up and saw a big round fat robin, with a breast red and shining, and a very good-natured face, and eyes which were very curious and inquisitive, as if he meant to know everybody’s business, and help them attend to it, too.”

“I’ll bet that’s the very robin who brought me news of my stuffed wife,” interposed Mr. Paroquet. “He knows everybody, and can trace their family back to the time when Mr. Noah let the first bird out of the ark. He comes here every winter for his health, he says, and he stops along by the way, and so gets all the news.”

“Maybe it was the same,” Mrs. Red replied. “But he was very kind to me, and asked me a great many questions, and when he heard my story, he said if it were not so warm he’d go up the river and find Mr. Red, and tell him about me. I thanked him and said that would do no good as I could not get out of prison, and should die there very soon.

“‘No, you won’t,’ he answered, cheerily. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

“Then, after eyeing me awhile, he continued:

“‘Why, Miss Red-top, I’ll tell you what’s the matter. You are starved! Look at that sweet potato and frosted cake. You’ll have dyspepsia sure. What you want is a good fat bug, and seeds of some kind. Just keep up your courage, and I’ll fix you.’

“So saying, he flew away to a neighboring garden, while I thought how good he was to me, an entire stranger, though I did wish he would not call me _miss_. It made me feel ashamed when I remembered Mr. Red and the nest among the jasmine.

“When my mistress came to see me, after breakfast, bringing the usual sweet potato, and broiled fish and bits of bread, she found a part of a bug in my cage, and a piece of fig which my new friend had found near one of the dining-room windows and brought to me. Great was her wonder as to where it came from, but as I could not talk to her, though able to understand all she said, I do not suppose she ever knew about the robin who came to see me every morning before there was much stir in the hotel, and kept me so well supplied with such things as I liked, that I began to recover my health and my spirits, too, though my heart was always aching for the nest up the river, and the babies I left in it. Gradually, too, I began to have a great liking for Mr. Red-Breast, as I called him at first, though he insisted that I should say Robin, as that was more familiar. At home they all called him Robin, and no one ever mistered him, he said, except Mrs. Robin, when she began to help him build the nest in the mountain ash, which he told me grew in the garden where he lived at the North.