I must say a word about Billy’s tail before I close this chapter. It is the custom to cut the ends of fox terrier’s tails, but leave their ears untouched. Billy came to Miss Laura so young that his tail had not been cut off, and she would not have it done.
One day Mr. Robinson came in to see him and he said, “You have made a fine-looking dog of him, but his appearance is ruined by the length of his tail.”
“Mr. Robinson,” said Mrs. Morris, patting little Billy, who lay on her lap, “don’t you think that this little dog has a beautifully proportioned body?”
“Yes, I do,” said the gentleman. “His points are all correct, save that one.”
“But,” she said, “if our Creator made that beautiful little body, don’t you think he is wise enough to know what length of tail would be in proportion to it?”
Mr. Robinson would not answer her. He only laughed and said that he thought she and Miss Laura were both “cranks.”
CHAPTER XI GOLDFISH AND CANARIES
THE Morris boys were all different. Jack was bright and clever, Ned was a wag, Willie was a book-worm, and Carl was a born trader.
He was always exchanging toys and books with his schoolmates, and they never got the better of him in a bargain. He said that when he grew up he was going to be a merchant, and he had already begun to carry on a trade in canaries and goldfish. He was very fond of what he called “his yellow pets,” yet he never kept a pair of birds or a goldfish, if he had a good offer for them.
He slept alone in a large, sunny room at the top of the house. By his own request, it was barely furnished, and there he raised his canaries and kept his goldfish.
He was not fond of having visitors coming to his room, because, he said, they frightened the canaries. After Mrs. Morris made his bed in the morning, the door was closed, and no one was supposed to go in till he came from school. Once Billy and I followed him upstairs without his knowing it, but as soon as he saw us he sent us down in a great hurry.
One day Bella walked into his room to inspect the canaries. She was quite a spoiled bird by this time, and I heard Carl telling the family afterward that it was as good as a play to see Miss Bella strutting in with her breast stuck out, and her little, conceited air, and hear her say, shrilly, “Good morning, birds, good morning! How do you do, Carl? Glad to see you, boy.”
“Well, I’m not glad to see you,” he said decidedly, “and don’t you ever come up here again. You’d frighten my canaries to death.” And he sent her flying downstairs.
How cross she was! She came shrieking to Miss Laura. “Bella loves birds. Bella wouldn’t hurt birds. Carl’s a bad boy.”
Miss Laura petted and soothed her, telling her to go find Davy, and he would play with her. Bella and the rat were great friends. It was very funny to see them going about the house together. From the very first she had liked him, and coaxed him into her cage, where he soon became quite at home, so much so that he always slept there. About nine o’clock every evening, if he was not with her, she went all over the house, crying, “Davy! Davy! time to go to bed. Come sleep in Bella’s cage.”
He was very fond of the nice sweet cakes she got to eat, but she never could get him to eat coffee grounds food she liked best.
Miss Laura spoke to Carl about Bella, and told him he had hurt her feelings, so he petted her a little to make up for it. Then his mother told him that she thought he was making a mistake in keeping his canaries so much to themselves. They had become so timid, that when she went into the room they were uneasy till she left it. She told him that petted birds or animals are sociable and like company, unless they are kept by themselves, when they become shy. She advised him to let the other boys go into the room, and occasionally to bring some of his pretty singers downstairs, where all the family could enjoy seeing and hearing them, and where they would get used to other people besides himself.
Carl looked thoughtful, and his mother went on to say that there was no one in the house, not even the cat, that would harm his birds.
“You might even charge admission for a day or two,” said Jack, gravely, “and introduce us to them, and make a little money.”
Carl was rather annoyed at this, but his mother calmed him by showing him a letter she had just gotten from one of her brothers, asking her to let one of her boys spend his Christmas holidays in the country with him.
“I want you to go, Carl,” she said.
He was very much pleased, but looked sober when he thought of his pets. “Laura and I will take care of them,” said his mother, “and start the new management of them.”
“Very well,” said Carl, “I will go then; I’ve no young ones now, so you will not find them much trouble.”
I thought it was a great deal of trouble to take care of them. The first morning after Carl left, Billy, and Bella, and Davy, and I followed Miss Laura upstairs. She made us sit in a row by the door, lest we should startle the canaries. She had a great many things to do. First, the canaries had their baths. They had to get them at the same time every morning. Miss Laura filled the little white dishes with water and put them in the cages, and then came and sat on a stool by the door. Bella, and Billy, and Davy climbed into her lap, and I stood close by her. It was so funny to watch those canaries. They put their heads on one side and looked first at their little baths and then at us. They knew we were strangers. Finally, as we were all very quiet, they got into the water; and what a good time they had, fluttering their wings and splashing, and cleaning themselves so nicely.
Then they got up on their perches and sat in the sun, shaking themselves and picking at their feathers.
Miss Laura cleaned each cage, and gave each bird some mixed rape and canary seed. I heard Carl tell her before he left not to give them much hemp seed, for that was too fattening. He was very careful about their food. During the summer I had often seen him taking up nice green things to them: celery, chickweed, tender cabbage, peaches, apples, pears, bananas; and now at Christmas time, he had green stuff growing in pots on the window ledge.
Besides that he gave them crumbs of coarse bread, crackers, lumps of sugar, cuttle-fish to peck at, and a number of other things. Miss Laura did everything just as he told her; but I think she talked to the birds more than he did. She was very particular about their drinking water, and washed out the little glass cups that held it most carefully.
After the canaries were clean and comfortable, Miss Laura set their cages in the sun, and turned to the goldfish. They were in large glass globes on the window-seat. She took a long-handled tin cup, and dipped out the fish from one into a basin of water. Then she washed the globe thoroughly and put the fish back, and scattered wafers of fish food on the top. The fish came up and snapped at it, and acted as if they were glad to get it. She did each globe and then her work was over for one morning.
She went away for a while, but every few hours through the day she ran up to Carl’s room to see how the fish and canaries were getting on. If the room was too chilly she turned on more heat; but she did not keep it too warm, for that would make the birds tender.
After a time the canaries got to know her, and hopped gayly around their cages, and chirped and sang whenever they saw her coming. Then she began to take some of them downstairs, and to let them out of their cages for an hour or two every day. They were very happy little creatures, and chased each other about the room, and flew on Miss Laura’s head, and pecked saucily at her face as she sat sewing and watching them. They were not at all afraid of me nor of Billy, and it was quite a sight to see them hopping