The Black Creek Stopping-House, and Other Stories Part 15

The next day being Sat.u.r.day, when Philip could watch them, he let them out. All day long his heart was torn with pride and fear--they looked so beautiful, circling and wheeling over the stable and far away across the road, and yet his heart was chill with the fear that they would never return.

That night the Pigeon Book received the following entry:

April 21st.--_I let them out and, they came back--they are sweet pets.

I dreem about them every night I have two dreems, my good dreem is the've layd my bad dreem is about tomcats and two little heaps of fethers its horrid_.

The next week another entry went into the book:

_I sold another pare to-day I've raised the price this pare is to be delivered in Ogist. I gave them a bran mash to-day, it makes them lay sure._

Under this Jack wrote:

_Thinking of the August delivery_.

The next entry was this:

May 1st.--_Wilfred G. is pritty meen, he thinks he knows it all. they aint goin to lay all in a hurry._

There seemed to be no doubt about this. They certainly were not. In spite of bran mashes, pepper, cotton batting, blue veil and tender care, they refused to even consider the question of laying.

Philip was quite satisfied with them as they were, if they would only stay with him, but the customers who had bought and paid for highly recommended young fowl were inclined to be impatient and even unpleasant when the two parent birds were to be seen gadding around the street at all hours of the day, utterly regardless of their young master's promises.

Philip learned to call them. His "cutacutacoo--cutacutacoo" could be heard up and down the street. Sometimes they seemed to pay a little attention to him, and then his joy was full. More often they seemed to say, "Cutacutacoo yourself!" or some such saucy word, and fly farther away.

One night they did not come home. Philip's most insistent "cutacutacoo"

brought no response. He hired boys to help him to look for them, beggaring himself of allies and marbles, even giving away his Lucky Shooter, a mottled pee-wee, to a lynx-eyed young hunter who claimed to be able to see in the dark. He even dared the town constable by staying out long after the curfew had rung, looking and asking. No one had seen them.

Through the night it rained, a cold, cruel rain--or so it seemed to the sad-hearted, wide-awake little boy. He stole out quietly, afraid that he might be sent back to bed, but only his mother heard him, and she understood. It was lonesome and dark outside, but love lighted his way.

He groped his way up the ladder, hoping to find them, but though the straw, the cotton batting, the blue veil, the water-dish were all in place--there were no pigeons!

Philip came back to bed, cold and wet in body, but his heart colder still with fear, and his face wetter with tears. Under cover of the night a boy of ten can cry all he wants to.

His mother, who heard him going out and who understood, called softly to him to come to her room, and then sympathized. She said they were safe enough, never fear, with some flock of pigeons; they had got lonesome, that was all; they would come back when they got hungry, and the rain would not hurt them, and be sure to wipe his feet!

The next day they were found across the street with Jerry Andrews'

pigeons, as unconcerned as you please. Philip parted with his Lost Heir game--about the only thing he had left--to get Jerry to help him to catch them when they were roosting. He shut them up for a few days and worked harder than ever, if that were possible, to try to please them.

The Pigeon Book would have been neglected only for his mother, who said it was only right to put in the bad as well as the good. That was the way with all stories. Philip made this entry:

_They went away and staid and had to be brot back by force I guess they were lonesome. I don't know why they don't like me--I like them_!

When his mother read that she said, "Poor little fellow," and made pancakes for tea.

In a few days he let them out again, and watched them with a pale face.

They did not hesitate a minute, but flew straight away down the street to the place they had been before, to the place where the people often made pies of pigeons and were not ashamed to tell it!

Philip followed them silently, not having the heart to call.

"Say, Phil," the boy of the pigeon loft called--he was a stout boy who made money out of everything--"I guess they ain't goin' to stay with you. You might as well sell out to me. I'll give you ten cents for the pair. I'm goin' to sell a bunch to the hotel on Sat.u.r.day."

An insane desire to fight him took hold of Philip. He turned away without speaking.

At school that day he approached the pigeon boy and made the proposition that filled the boy with astonishment: "I'll give them to you, Jerry," he said, hurriedly, "if you promise not to kill them. It's all right! I guess I won't bother with pigeons--I think I'll get a dog --or something," he ended lamely.

Jerry was surprised, but being a business man he closed the deal on the spot. When Philip went home he put his pigeon book away.

There was a final entry, slightly smeared and very badly written:

_They are ungrateful broots_!

YOU NEVER CAN TELL

(Reprinted by permission of _Sat.u.r.day Night_, Toronto.)

It was at exactly half-past three in the afternoon of a hot June day that Mrs. Theodore Banks became smitten with the idea. Mrs. Banks often said afterwards she did not know how she came to be thinking about the Convention of the Arts and Crafts at all, although she is the Secretary. The idea was so compelling that Mrs. Banks rushed down town to tell Mr. Banks--she felt she could not depend on the telephone.

"Ted," she cried, when she opened the door of the office, "I have an idea!"

Theodore raised his eyelids.

Mrs. Banks was flushed and excited and looked well. Mrs. Banks was a handsome woman any time, and to-day her vivacity was quite genuine.

"You know the Convention of the Arts and Crafts--which begins on the twentieth."

"I've heard of it--somewhere."

"Well, it just came to me, Teddy, what a perfectly heavenly thing it would be to invite that little Mrs. Dawson, who writes reviews for one of the papers here--you remember I told you about her--she is awfully clever and artistic and good-looking, and lives away off from every place, and her husband is not her equal at all--perfectly illiterate, I heard--uncultured anyway. What a perfect joy it would be to her to have her come, and meet with people who are her equals. She's an Ottawa girl originally, I believe, and she does write the most perfectly sweet and darling things--you remember I've read them for you. Of course, she is probably very shabby and out of date in her clothes by this time.

But it doesn't really matter what one wears, if one has heaps of brains. It is only dull women, really, who have to be so terribly careful about what they wear, and spend so much money that way!"

"Dull women!" Theodore murmured. "Oh! is that why? I never really knew."

She laughed at his look of enlightened surprise. When Mrs. Banks laughed there were three dimples plainly showing, which did not entirely discourage her merriment.

"And you know, Teddy, there is such a mystery about her marriage! She will really be quite an acquisition, and we'll have her on the programme."

"What mystery?" Mr. Banks asked.

"Oh, well, not mystery, maybe, but we all suppose she's not happy. How could she be with so few of the real pleasures of life, and still she stays with it, and actually goes places with her husband, and seems to be keeping it up, and you know, Ted, she has either three or four children!"

"Is it as bad as that?" he asked, solemnly.

"Oh, Ted! you know well enough what I mean--don't be such an owl! Just think of how tied down and horrible it must be for her out there in that desolate Alberta, with no neighbors at all for miles, and then only impossible people. I should think it would drive her mad. I must try to get her on the programme, too. She will at least be interesting, on account of her personality. Most of our speakers are horribly prosy, at least to me, but of course I never listen; I just look to see what they've on and then go straight back to my own thinking. I just thought I'd ask your advice, Teddy dear, before I asked the Committee, and so now I'll go to see Mrs. Trenton, the President. So glad you approve, dear! And really there will be a touch of romance in it, Ted, for Bruce Edwards knew her when she lived in Ottawa--it was he who told me so much about her. He simply raved about her to me--it seems he was quite mad about her once, and probably it was a lover's quarrel or something that drove her away to the West to forget,--and now think of her meeting Bruce again. Isn't that a thriller?"

"If I thought Bruce Edwards had brains enough to care for any woman I'd say it was not right to bring her here," said Mr. Banks; "but he hasn't."

"Oh, of course," Mrs. Banks agreed, "he is quite over it now, no doubt.