Feathered Affection

THERE are a venturous few among us who presume to see among the souls that have been knit with ours and that now, perchance, await us in the flowery fields of Paradise, members of species other than our own. We dream of the wag of a feathery tail among the asphodels, the gleam of brown eyes that were faithful unto death; we hear again the purring of a furry comrade who went forth from the warmth of our hearthstone into the night. And, for me, in that complete reunion, there must be a familiar rush of wings and a clear bird hail from the branches of the tree of life.

In their capacity for affection to usward and in the affinities that exist between the human and the feathered tribes, there is an unworked field rich in possibilities. If we have hitherto failed to secure reaction here, it is because we have not acted, quite possibly because we have not attained. For our point of contact with bird life is in the region of our own most ethereal qualities. What is the bird but visible spirit ? He is color, melody, rhythmic motion, pure joy objectified. Like our own transcendent moods, he flits at the approach of all that is harsh, brutal, domineering. We may not hope to approach a bird with loud voice, violent movement, or unworthy demeanor. He will have none of us. Tones light and musical, our utmost gentleness of manner, the ascendancy of our purest emotions — these will win him.

Across the shades of memory, like a beam of light, flits a gold canary, his little crest erect, his voice vibrant with joyous greeting to his friends returned. He has been long alone in a darkened room. I open the blind and let the sunlight in through the vines and the red geranium flowers, then stand silent before the burst of melody that is his instant response.

No lower passions here — whatever they may be. I have ministered to no material need of my little friend. Light, color, a loving voice — these have transformed listless silence into vocal ecstasy.

The tenderest, most ethereal caress I have ever known was that of a ringdove — the author and bestower of which was, for three years, my fluttering halo; I was the sine qua non of his existence.

I was a lonely teacher in a dreary mining camp. For me, at the close of day, there was no face at the window, no fire on the hearth. But in the top of the tallest poplar tree, ‘faithful through the watches long,’ a little sentinel had marked the hours.

While yet afar off came his salute —

‘ Cook coo-oo, cook coo-oo.’ Then, with spread wings, on a sort of aerial toboggan, he glided down — to sit upon my shoulder, to lay his silken cheek to mine, and to murmur such emotions as only the dovelike voice can adequately convey.

Sometimes, waking in the night, oppressed by the stillness, I would speak to him. There would be an instant’s delay — just sufficient, I knew, to fill that wonderful wind-instrument of his. Then, from his corner, tender as a hand upon the head, would come his reassuring ‘Cook coo-oo, cook coo-oo.’

What matter fur or feathers, two legs or four, brute or human? These spirit entities have been received into the heart.

When one has acquired a bird-vocabulary, many a bright greeting may be exchanged with even the wild songster. He will linger with pricked feathers and animated mien, to reply again and again to call or whistle.

And what of our humble and everpresent friend, the barnyard fowl? Is our point of contact with her that of the purse and the palate only?

Lest we transcend experience and incur a challenge, let us confine ourselves to the incubated fowl and to the white leghorn bird.

What incubator mother can regard without emotion her downy and multitudinous brood in their infantile dependence — she who is to them the almighty, the author and preserver of their being?

What a joy to deal out the wholesome ration, to watch the little crops distend, and to see the downy mites steal away one by one to the sunny corner and spread themselves for an after-dinner nap of absolute content! How comforting to nest them cosily at twilight, to listen to their sleepy chirpings, and to secure them from all those night terrors of little chicks — cold and wet, rats and cats, owls and vermin; to insure them that dreamless sleep which is the condition of normal growth in universal babyhood!

How it touches one’s heart when some adventurous truant, struck with sudden terror of the vast world into which he has ventured, flies shrieking into one’s hands and cuddles there with gradually abating sobs — for all the world like a terrified child!

And, as the days pass, and the balls of corn-colored down grow into slender, snow-white adolescents, what loving, tender-voiced little companions they are! What delight is theirs when incubator mother condescends to sit out under the tree? How they compete for the nearest branches, and cuddle about her skirts and feet, and flare themselves before her in conspicuous attitudes, hoping to be taken up! And, if she lifts one and holds it to her cheek, how it will rival the ring-dove in murmuring affection! Even to dignified cockhood and henhood the delight in the caress survives.

A wholesome chicken yard, with its cackling, cawing, crowing, red-topped population, conscious of clean and hygienic quarters and of regular and abundant rations; industriously productive, tirelessly active; always greeting your coming with tumultuous welcome, — it is a little nursery of pure joy in living, an epitome of ardent existence!