Part 15 (1/2)

”Chase that skirt, over there, please--she makes too much noise to suit me!”

But for once John Flint wasn't a friend to a bluejay--he uttered an exclamation of sorrow and dismay.

”My nest!” he cried tragically. ”My beautiful nest with the four eggs, that I've been watching day by day! And the little mother-thing that knew me, and let me touch her, and feed her, and wasn't afraid of me!

Oh, you blue devil! You thief! You murderer!” And in a great gust of sorrow and anger he lifted his stick to hurl it at the criminal.

Laurence caught the upraised arm.

”But he doesn't know he's a thief and a murderer,” said he, and looked at the handsome culprit with unwilling admiration. The jay, having finished the nest to his entire satisfaction, hopped down upon a limb and turned his attention to us. He screamed at Laurence, thrusting forward his impudent head; while the poor robbed mother, with lamentable cries, watched him from a safe distance. Full of his cannibal meal, Mister Bluejay callously ignored her. He was more interested in us. Down he came, nearer yet, with a flirt of fine wings, a spreading of barred tail, just above Flint's head, and talked jocularly to his friend in jayese.

”You're a thief and a robber!” raged the b.u.t.terfly Man. ”You're a d.a.m.n little bird-killer, that's what you are! I ought to wring your neck for you, and I'd do it if it would do the rest of your tribe any good.

But it wouldn't. It wouldn't bring back the lost eggs nor the spoiled nest, either. Besides, you don't know any better. You're what you are because you were hatched like that, and there wasn't Anything to tell you what's right and wrong for a decent bird to do. The best one can do for you is to get wise to your ways and watch out that you can't do more mischief.”

The bluejay, with his handsome crested head on one side, c.o.c.ked his bright black eye knowingly, and pa.s.sed derisive remarks. Any one who has listened attentively to a bluejay must be deeply grateful that the gift of articulate speech has been wisely withheld from him; he is a hooligan of a bird. He lifted his wings like half-playful fists. If he had fingers, be sure a thumb had been lifted profanely to his nose.

The b.u.t.terfly Man watched him for a moment in silence; a furrow came to his forehead.

”d.a.m.n little thief!” he muttered. ”And you don't even have to care!

No! It's not right. There ought to be some way to save the mothers and the nests from your sort--without having to kill you, either. But good Lord, how? That's what I want to know!”

”Beat 'em to it and stand 'em off,” said Laurence, staring at the ravaged nest, the unhappy mother, the gorged impenitent thief. ”'Git thar fustest with the mostest men.' Have the nests so protected the thief can't get in without getting caught. Build Better Bird Houses, say, and enforce a Law of the Garden--Boom and Food for all, Pillage for None. You'd have to expect some spoiled nests, of course, for you couldn't be on guard all the time, and you couldn't make all the birds live in your Better Bird Houses--they wouldn't know how. But you'd save some of them, at any rate.”

”Think so?” said John Flint. ”Huh! And what'd you do with _him_?” And he jerked his head at the screaming jay.

”Let him alone, so long as he behaved. Shoo him outside when he didn't--and see that he kept outside,” said Laurence. ”You see, the idea isn't so much to reform bluejays--it's to save the other birds from them.”

John Flint's face was troubled. ”It's all a muddle, anyhow,” said he.

”You can't blame the bluejay, because he was born so, and it's bluejay nature to act like that when it gets the chance. But there's the other bird--it looks bad. It is bad. For a thief to come into a little nest like that, that she'd been brooding on, and twittering to, and feeling so good and so happy about--Man, I'd have given a month's work and pay to have saved that nest! It's not fair. G.o.d! Isn't there _some_ way to save the good ones from the bad ones?”

There he stood, in the middle of the path, staring ruefully at the wrecked bit of twigs and moss and down that had been a wee home; and with more of sorrow than anger at the feathered crook who had done the damage. The thing was slight in itself, and more than common--just one of the unrecorded humble tragedies which daily engulf the Little Peoples. But I had seen a b.u.t.terfly's wing save him alive; and so I did not doubt now that a little bird's nest could weigh down the balance which would put him definitely upon the side of good and of G.o.d.

”I think there is a way,” said Laurence, gravely, ”and that is to beat them to it and stand them off. All the rest is talk and piffle--the only way to save is to save. There are no halfway measures; also, it's a lifetime job, full of kicks and cuffs and ingrat.i.tude and misunderstanding and failure and loneliness, and sometimes even worse things yet. But you do manage to sometimes save the nests and the fledglings, and you do sometimes escape the pain of hearing the mothers lamenting. And that's the only reward a decent mortal ought to hope for. I reckon it's about the best reward there is, this side of heaven.”

The b.u.t.terfly Man swallowed this a bit ungraciously.

”You've got a devil of a way of twisting things into parables. I'm talking birds and thinking birds, and here you must go and make my birds people! I wasn't thinking about people--that is, I wasn't, until you have to go and put the notion into my head. It's not fair. The thing's bad enough already, without your lugging folks into it and making it worse!”

Laurence looked at him steadily. ”You've got to think of people, when you see things like that,” said he, slowly; ”otherwise you only half-see. I have to think of people--of kids, particularly--and their mothers.” He turned as he spoke, and stared out over our garden, with its sunny s.p.a.ces, and its shrubs and flowers, and trees, to where, over in the sky a pillar of smoke rose steadily, endlessly, and merged into a cloud overhanging the quiet little town.

”The pillar of cloud by day,” said he ”that leads the children--” He stopped, and the whimsical smile faded from his face; his jaw set.

The bluejay, having exhausted his vocabulary of jay-ribaldry, screeched one last outrageous bit of billingsgate into Flint's ears, shut up his tail like a fan, and darted off, a streak of blue and gray. The b.u.t.terfly Man's eyes followed him smilelessly; then they came back and dwelt for a moment upon the ruined nest and the fluttering mother-bird, still vexing the ear with her shrill lamentable futile protests. From her his eyes went, out over the trees and flowers to that pillar mounting lazily and inevitably into the sky. For a long moment he stared at that, too, fixedly. After an interval he clenched his hand upon his stick and struck the ground.

”_Nothing's_ got any business to break up a nest! I'd rather sit up all night and watch than see what I've just seen and listen to that mother-thing calling to Something that's far-off and stone deaf and can't hear nor heed. Why, the little birds haven't got even the chance to get themselves born, much less grow up and sing! I--Say, you two go on a bit. I feel mighty bad about this. I'd been watching her. She knew me. She let me feed her. If only I'd thought about the jay, why, I might have saved her. But just when she needed me I wasn't there!”

He turned abruptly, and strode off toward his own rooms. Kerry followed with a drooping head and tail. But Laurence looked after him hopefully.

”Padre, the b.u.t.terfly Man's seen something this morning that will sink to the bottom of his soul and stay there: didn't you see his eyes? Now, which of those two have taught him the most--the happy thief and murderer, or the innocent unhappy victim? The bluejay's not a whit the worse for it, remember; in fact, he's all the better off, for his stomach is full and his mischief satisfied, and that's all that ever worries a bluejay. And there isn't any redress for the mother-bird. The thing's done, and can't be undone. But between them they've shown John Flint something that forces a man to take sides.

Doesn't the bluejay deserve some little credit for that? And is there _ever_ any redress for the mother-bird, Padre?”

”Why, the Church teaches--” I began.

Laurence nodded. ”Yes, Padre, I know all that. But it can't teach away what's always happening here and now. At least not to the b.u.t.terfly Man and me, ... nor yet the mother-birds, Padre. No. We want to be shown how to head off the bluejays.”

We walked along in silence, his hand upon my arm. His eyes were clouded with the vision that beckoned him. As for me, I was wondering just where, and how far, that bluejay was going to lead John Flint.