HISTORYOF AWHITEBLACKBIRD.HOWglorious and yet how painful it is to be an exceptional Blackbird! I am not a fabulous bird. M. de Buffon has described me. But, alas! I am of an exceedingly rare type, very difficult to find, and one that ought, I think, never to have existed.My parents were worthy birds, who lived in an old out-of-the-way kitchen-garden. Ours was a most exemplary home. While my mother laid regularly three times a year, my father, though old and petulant, still grubbed round the tree in which she sat, bringing her the daintiest insect fare. When night closed round the scene, he never missed singing his well-known song, to the delight of the neighbourhood. No domestic grief, quarrel, or cloud of any sort had marred this happy union.Hardly had I left my shell, when my father, for the first time in his life, thoroughly lost his temper. Although I was of a doubtful grey, he neither recognised in me the colour nor the shape of his numerous posterity.“This is a most doubtful child,” he used to say, as he cast a sideglance at me, “neither white nor black, as dirty-looking as he seems ill-begotten.”“Ah me!” sighed my mother, who was always coiled up in a ball on her nest. “You yourself, dear, were you not a charming good-for-nothing in your youth? Our little pet will grow up to be the best of our brood.”While taking my part, my mother felt inward qualms as she saw my callow down grow to feathers; but, like all mothers, her heart warmed to the child least favoured by nature, and she instinctively sought to shield me from the cruel world.When I was moulting, for the first time my father became quite pensive, and considered me attentively. While my down fell off he even treated me with some degree of favour, but as soon as my poor cold wings received their covering, as each white feather appeared, he became so furious that I dreaded his plucking me alive. Having no mirror, I remained ignorant of the cause of his wrath, and was at a loss to account for the studied unkindness of the best of parents. One day, filled with joy by a beam of sunlight and the warmth of my new coat, I left the nest, and alighting in the garden, burst into song. Instantly my father darted down from his perch with the velocity of a rocket.“What do I hear?” he cried. “Is that meant for a Blackbird’s whistle? Is it thus I sing? Do you call that song?”Returning to my mother with a most dangerous expression lurking round his beak, “Unfortunate! who has invaded our nest? who laid that egg?”At these words my good mother jumped from her nest fired by proud resentment. In doing so she fell and hurt her leg; she wished to speak, but her heart was too full for words. She fell to the ground fainting.Frightened and trembling, I cast myself at my father’s feet. “O my father!” I said, “if I whistle out of tune, and am clothed in white, do not punish my poor mother. Is it her fault that nature has not tuned my ear like yours? Is it her fault that I have not your yellow beak and glossy black coat, which recall a sleek parson swallowing an omelette? If Heaven has made me a monster, and if some one must bear the punishment, let me be the only sufferer.”“That is not the question,” said my father. “Who taught you to whistle against rule?”“Alas! sir,” I said humbly, “I whistled as best I could, because my breast was full of sunshine and stomach full of grubs.”“Such whistling was never known in my family,” he replied. “For untold centuries we have whistled, from father to son, the notes alone by which we are known. Our morning and evening warblings havebeen the pride of the world since the dawn that awoke us to the joys of paradise. My voice alone is the delight of a gentleman on the first floor and of a poor girl in the attic of yonder house. They open their windows to listen to me. Is it not enough to have your whitened clown-at-a-fair coat constantly before my eyes? Were I not the most pacific of parents, I should have you plucked and toasted on the poor girl’s spit.”“Well,” I cried, disgusted with my father’s injustice, “be it so, I will leave you—deliver you from the sight of this white tail you are constantly pulling. As my mother lays three times a year, you may yet have numerous black children to console your old age. I will seek a hiding-place for my misery; perchance some shady spout which shall afford flies or spiders to sustain my sad life. Adieu!”“Please yourself,” replied my father, who seemed to enjoy the prospect of losing me; “you are no son of mine—in fact, you are no Blackbird.”“And who may I be, pray?”“Impossible to say; but you are no Blackbird.”After these memorable words, my unnatural parent with slow steps left me, and my poor mother limped into a bush to weep. As for myself, I flew to the spout of a neighbouring house.
HOWglorious and yet how painful it is to be an exceptional Blackbird! I am not a fabulous bird. M. de Buffon has described me. But, alas! I am of an exceedingly rare type, very difficult to find, and one that ought, I think, never to have existed.
My parents were worthy birds, who lived in an old out-of-the-way kitchen-garden. Ours was a most exemplary home. While my mother laid regularly three times a year, my father, though old and petulant, still grubbed round the tree in which she sat, bringing her the daintiest insect fare. When night closed round the scene, he never missed singing his well-known song, to the delight of the neighbourhood. No domestic grief, quarrel, or cloud of any sort had marred this happy union.
Hardly had I left my shell, when my father, for the first time in his life, thoroughly lost his temper. Although I was of a doubtful grey, he neither recognised in me the colour nor the shape of his numerous posterity.
“This is a most doubtful child,” he used to say, as he cast a sideglance at me, “neither white nor black, as dirty-looking as he seems ill-begotten.”
“Ah me!” sighed my mother, who was always coiled up in a ball on her nest. “You yourself, dear, were you not a charming good-for-nothing in your youth? Our little pet will grow up to be the best of our brood.”
While taking my part, my mother felt inward qualms as she saw my callow down grow to feathers; but, like all mothers, her heart warmed to the child least favoured by nature, and she instinctively sought to shield me from the cruel world.
When I was moulting, for the first time my father became quite pensive, and considered me attentively. While my down fell off he even treated me with some degree of favour, but as soon as my poor cold wings received their covering, as each white feather appeared, he became so furious that I dreaded his plucking me alive. Having no mirror, I remained ignorant of the cause of his wrath, and was at a loss to account for the studied unkindness of the best of parents. One day, filled with joy by a beam of sunlight and the warmth of my new coat, I left the nest, and alighting in the garden, burst into song. Instantly my father darted down from his perch with the velocity of a rocket.
“What do I hear?” he cried. “Is that meant for a Blackbird’s whistle? Is it thus I sing? Do you call that song?”
Returning to my mother with a most dangerous expression lurking round his beak, “Unfortunate! who has invaded our nest? who laid that egg?”
At these words my good mother jumped from her nest fired by proud resentment. In doing so she fell and hurt her leg; she wished to speak, but her heart was too full for words. She fell to the ground fainting.
Frightened and trembling, I cast myself at my father’s feet. “O my father!” I said, “if I whistle out of tune, and am clothed in white, do not punish my poor mother. Is it her fault that nature has not tuned my ear like yours? Is it her fault that I have not your yellow beak and glossy black coat, which recall a sleek parson swallowing an omelette? If Heaven has made me a monster, and if some one must bear the punishment, let me be the only sufferer.”
“That is not the question,” said my father. “Who taught you to whistle against rule?”
“Alas! sir,” I said humbly, “I whistled as best I could, because my breast was full of sunshine and stomach full of grubs.”
“Such whistling was never known in my family,” he replied. “For untold centuries we have whistled, from father to son, the notes alone by which we are known. Our morning and evening warblings havebeen the pride of the world since the dawn that awoke us to the joys of paradise. My voice alone is the delight of a gentleman on the first floor and of a poor girl in the attic of yonder house. They open their windows to listen to me. Is it not enough to have your whitened clown-at-a-fair coat constantly before my eyes? Were I not the most pacific of parents, I should have you plucked and toasted on the poor girl’s spit.”
“Well,” I cried, disgusted with my father’s injustice, “be it so, I will leave you—deliver you from the sight of this white tail you are constantly pulling. As my mother lays three times a year, you may yet have numerous black children to console your old age. I will seek a hiding-place for my misery; perchance some shady spout which shall afford flies or spiders to sustain my sad life. Adieu!”
“Please yourself,” replied my father, who seemed to enjoy the prospect of losing me; “you are no son of mine—in fact, you are no Blackbird.”
“And who may I be, pray?”
“Impossible to say; but you are no Blackbird.”
After these memorable words, my unnatural parent with slow steps left me, and my poor mother limped into a bush to weep. As for myself, I flew to the spout of a neighbouring house.