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several evenings early in October the North Street boys
had been gathering at Benson’s to try and organize
a club, but the difficulty seemed to be to decide upon
what kind of a club would be most interesting. The ball
season would soon be over, the long winter would soon
be on them, and things wore a pretty flat outlook, unless
they could arrange some interesting diversion for that
string of dull days, only broken by Christmas holidays.
The West Ward fellows had a Checker Club, the Third
Form fellows had a Puzzle Club, the Collegiates had
a Canadian Literature Club; even the Mill boys down
on the Flats had a Captain Kidd Club, proving themselves
at times bandits quite worthy the club’s name.
Only the North Street boys seemed “out of it,”
but from the way they talked and shouted and wrangled
at these preliminary meetings it looked as if they certainly
intended to “come in” out of their isolation.
But there had been five meetings without any decision
having been arrived at. Every boy of the ten present
seemed to want a different sort of club. The things
that were suggested would have amazed the members of
the various other clubs could they have heard them.
Then, one night when the din
and confusion were at fever heat, the door suddenly
opened and in walked Benson’s father.
“Why, what’s all
this babel?” he exclaimed, as silence fell on
the crowd and the boys got to their feet meekly to greet
him with polite “good-evenings.” “I
never heard such a parrot-and-monkey, Kilkenny-cat outfit
in all my life! What’s up, fellows?” [Page
169]
Benson’s father
was generally acknowledged to be a “comedian.”
No one ever saw him in a temper, or heard him speak
a sharp word. He had a droll, woebegone face that never
smiled, but a face everybody—from the mayor to
the poorest mill hand—loved and respected. How
often Benson had come in from school, ill-tempered and
sour-visaged at something that had gone wrong in the
class-room, only to have that droll face of his father’s
and some equally droll remark upset all his dignity
and indignation into laughter and consequent good nature.
“One at a time,
boys, just one at a time, or I shall have bustificated
eardrums! What is it all about?”
Then they told him,
but, it must be confessed, not one at a time.
“A club, eh?” he
questioned, straddling a chair and leaning his arms
on the back. “What kind of a club, pleasure club,
improvement club, sporting club, what?”
“That’s the trouble;
we can’t hit on it!” they chorused.
For a moment he sat silent,
his round, childish eyes surveying the world that hung
on his very first words.
“I saw a queer thing as
I came up the street to-night,” he began, seemingly
having forgotten the subject in hand. “A dray-horse
was standing before the mill gates, and, frisking about
its heels, was a dandy little cocker spaniel, prettiest
little dog you ever saw. The horse got tired leaning
on one leg, I guess, for he shifted his position, and,
in bringing down his left hind leg, he just pinned the
little cocker’s foot to the ground with his big
hoof. Cocker yelled. Worst row I ever heard—until
I came into this room. But what do you suppose Mr. Horse
did? Just lifted gently his left fore-hoof, but the
squealing did not stop. Then he lifted his right fore-hoof;
still the squealing went on. ‘Thinks I,’
said the horse to himself, ‘it must be my right
hind-hoof,’ so he lifted that. ‘No, sir,’
he told himself; ‘sure, it’s my left-hinder’;
and lifting that, he released the poor dog, who dashed
around to the horse’s head, leaping up to his
nose, and saying, [Page 170] ‘Thank
you!’ over and over.*
And the big, clumsy dray-horse just drew his long face
a little longer, and said: ‘Never mind, old chap!
I didn’t mean to hurt you; I’m sorry.’
Then came the drayman out of the mill—a nice,
considerate, heart-warm, intelligent human being. Oh,
yes! we humans know so much more than animals, don’t
we, fellows? And because the big, patient, kindly dray-horse
had, in its restlessness, moved twenty feet from the
spot the driver left him at, that creature that is supposed
to have known better, just took his whip and licked
and lashed that glorious animal, yelling in a frenzy
of temper, ‘I’ll teach you to move, when
I leave you! You—’ Well boys, you nor I
don’t care to hear all he did say.”
“The brute!” “The
big human hulk!” “The sneak!” “And
he called himself a man!” were some of the phrases
growled out by the indignant boys.
“Yes, a man,” continued
Benson’s father, “so much better
than the dray-horse, that knew enough to lift his feet
until he lifted the right one. I believe if that horse
had the feet of a centipede, he would have gone on lifting
them until the dog was released. I tell you, boys, if
I could get anyone to help me, I’d start an Animal
Rescue Club, to—”
But the good gentleman never
finished that sentence. The boys were on top of him,
round him, under him, clamoring and shouting for him
to organize their club for them, to help them study
the habits and ways and “thoughts” of animals,
to prevent abuse and cruelty towards them. They voted
him in as honorary president, and went home that night
the happiest-hearted lot of boys in the country. Just
before they dispersed, however, a shy little chap named
Jimmy Duffy, who had not much opportunity to speak amid
the noise of stronger voices, said:
“But, Mr. Benson, you
do think the dray-horse thought and reasoned,
don’t you?” [Page 171]
“Surely he did, boy! And
he spoke, too, in is own simple horse-language, though
we cannot understand his tongue; but we should,”
answered Benson’s father.
It was not very long before
the “Animal Rescue Club” of North Street
became known far and wide, and its influence began to
be felt in all quarters. The unfeeling drayman whose
act of cruelty first gave rise to the organization was
watched, then reported to police headquarters, from
where he received a sound lecture because of various
other ill-treatments of his horse, and after a time
he began to see his own unkindness through the same
spectacles as the “Animal Rescuers” viewed
it, and within two months he became a considerate, gentle
driver.
“If the club never does
another thing but reform that one man, and make him
kinder to that big, good-hearted horse of his, it has
been organized for some purpose,” commented Mr.
Benson, one evening, when he “dropped in”
to one of the meetings. “Keep it up, fellows.
Our little four-footed animals serve us well, and deserve
consideration in return.” And the boys worked
hard and faithfully to follow his advice. Homeless cats,
stray, mangy dogs, ill-fed horses, neglected cows, street
sparrows, pigeons, bluejays, were watched and protected
and relieved of their sufferings all that winter through.
Finally Benson’s father arranged his evenings
so that he could spend an hour with the club at each
meeting, which time he devoted to “lecturing”
on the habits and haunts of animals and birds. Those
lectures were the delight of all, for this happy-hearted,
boyish man would, in some marvellous fashion, discover
all the humorous habits and comical dispositions and
actions of every living thing. The little wiry-haired
Irish terrier was a comedian, he declared. The bull-moose
was a tragedian, the black bear cub was a clown, the
lynx a villain, and the migrating birds a sweet, invisible
chorus. Then to each and all he would attach some fascinating
story, explaining why they resembled these characters.
Often the entire club would [Page 172]
be roaring with laughter over animal antics and bird
capers, then the young faces would be very serious the
next minute over some pathetic, heart-breaking tale
of hunted deer-mothers trying to protect their pretty
fawns, or some father fox lying dead because a swift
bullet had caught him as he raided the poultry yard
in the endeavor to seize food for the pretty litter
of sharp-nosed little cubs, curled up with their mother
in a distant cave.
So the boys listened and learned
and laughed, and, as spring crept up the calendar, their
only regret at the return of the ball season was that
the club meetings would be over until next autumn.
*
* *
* *
*
It
was late in April when little Jimmy Duffy’s father
was called to Buffalo on business. The night before
leaving, he said: “It’s most annoying! Here
I have to go all that way for just about one hour’s
talk with a man; an entire day wasted for the sake of
one hour, or—hold on, let’s see, Jimmy.
You have never seen Niagara Falls, have you?”
“No,
dad,” answered Jimmy, his face eager with hope.
“The you be ready to come
with me to-morrow. I’ll get through my business
by noon, and you and I will just ‘do’ the
Falls until dark, and get home on the late train. How
does that strike you?”
But
Jimmy was speechless with delight. For years he had
longed to see Niagara, but there was a number of older
brothers and sisters, and Jimmy’s turn never seemed
to have come until to-day. But the treat was here at
last. A whole day along with his big dad, prowling about
Niagara Falls, feasting his eyes upon its wonders, listening
to its everlasting roar as it plunges over the heights!
Jimmy did not sleep very much that night, and, long
before train time, he was up, dressed in his best suit,
even got himself a fresh pocket-handkerchief, scrambled
through breakfast, then sat fidgeting on the front doorstep,
while his father took a leisurely meal, glanced calmly
[Page 173] at his watch occasionally,
then, pushing back his chair, stepped briskly into the
hall, glanced at the weather, got his light coat and
hat, said good-bye to Mrs. Duffy, and called out: “Now,
then, Jimmy!” But Jimmy was already at the gate,
having kissed his mother good-bye almost an hour before,
and presently they were swinging up to the station at
a good gait, Mr. Duffy silent, thoughtful, engrossed
in his coming business engagement, Jimmy dancing, whistling,
strung up with excitement that bade fair to continue
throughout the day.
It
took three hours to reach Buffalo. Then poor Jimmy had
to sit in a stuffy outer office while his father and
“the man” talked on the other side of a
glass door. Jimmy thought they would never stop, but
in exactly one hour the door opened, and he heard “the
man” say:
“Now,
Mr. Duffy, will you come to my club and we will have
luncheon together?”
“Not
to-day, thanks, Mr. Brown. I have my small boy with
me, and we’re off for the Falls. Jimmy’s
never seen them yet.”
“Well,
well!” answered Mr. Brown. “That’s
nice! Going to be a boy again yourself, eh, Duffy? Well,
have a good time, and good luck to you both!”
And the glass door closed.
His
business ended, Jimmy’s father seemed another
person. He chatted and talked and laughed with his son,
ordered a splendid luncheon for them both, swung aboard
the train, and by two o’clock they were standing
on the very edge of the precipice, with the glorious
Falls of Niagara thundering into the basin at their
feet. The column of filmy mist, the gorgeous rainbows,
the stupendous cataract, leaping and snarling like a
million wolves—it whirled about Jimmy’s
brain like a wild dream of No Man’s Land, and
he walked beside his father in a daze of delight. They
prowled through the islands, crossed the cobwebby bridges
from rock to rock above the Falls, and [Page
174] finally sprawled on a bald ledge of stone,
that jutted far out into the turbulent river.
“We’ll
just rest here a few minutes, James,” said his
father, playfully. “Then we must go below the
Falls and explore the ice-bridge. I see it is yet in
perfect condition. You are fortunate, my boy, to be
able to see it. There are some winters that never bring
an ice-bridge. Then sometimes it thaws in March, so
we are lucky to-day.
About
them tossed and tumbled the angry rapids, wrangling
and brawling around their granite shores, but, above
their conflicting noises arose a far, clear, musical
sound, like a hundred throats and lips that whistled
in unison.
“What’s
that?” exclaimed Mr. Duffy, sitting erect suddenly.
“I
don’t know,” said the boy, scanning the
tangled waters with his unpractised young eyes.
“There
it is again, dad!” he cried. “It is whistling.
A great company, somewhere, whistling!” Then,
looking quickly skyward, he pointed excitedly upstream,
“Look, look! Birds! They are birds! Great white
ones, dad! What are they? There’s the whistle
again!”
Mr.
Duffy shaded his eyes from the sun, and watched; for
there, in the smooth waters above the rapids, were settling,
one by one, a magnificent host of snow-white swans,
their wearied bodies almost dropping into the river,
their exhausted pinions dropping, nerveless and trailing,
into the dark, deceptive stream, which lured them like
a snare to its breast.
“Jimmy,
Jimmy!” shouted Mr. Duffy, “they’re
swans, and they’re dead played out! They’re
migrating north for the summer! I bet they’ve
flown a thousand miles! See, boy, they’re spent,
dead beat!”
Jimmy
fairly held his breath. The magnificent band of birds
were slowly floating towards them. Now they could distinguish
each regal body, feathered in dazzling white, each bill,
scarlet as a July poppy, each gracefully [Page
175] lifted throat. But the majestic creatures
floated swiftly and silently on, on, on!
“Father!”
The boy’s voice trembled huskily. “Oh, father,
you don’t think they are in any danger of going
over, do you?” His begging, pleading tones revealed
his own childish fears.
“Oh,
surely not!” answered Mr. Duffy, but
his tone lacked confidence. Then, after a brief silence,
he almost groaned: “Jimmy, they’re done
for! They don’t see their danger, and they’re
too tired to rise if they do. Oh, boy, if we could save
them!”
But
Jimmy stood rigid, staring, his heart slowly breaking,
breaking. Anyone could see now that the stately battalion
was doomed. With utter unconsciousness they drifted
on, exhausted with their far journey from the lagoons
and marshes of Chesapeake Bay, where the torrid suns
had driven them from their winter haunts, to wing their
way to their summer home in the far, white North.
“Oh,
Jimmy, the pity of it!” murmured Mr. Duffy. But
the boy stood wordless, as the irresistible giant current
caught the trusting birds and swept them, with a hideous,
overpowering force, to the very brink of the Horseshoe
Fall. The boy, thrilling with the horror of it, shut
his eyes, and flung himself, face downward, on the rocks.
A strange, inarticulate moan left the man’s lips.
The boy lifted his head, lifted his eyes, but the river
was empty.
They
ran breathlessly across the cobwebby bridges, around
Goat Island, then to the shore, then to the elevator,
and descended to the ice-bridge; but, above the angry
battle of Niagara, arose the plaintive, dying cries
of scores of snow-white birds, the shouts of gathering
sightseers. Against the ruthless edges of ice lay, bleeding
and broken, what was left of that superb company homeward
bound. Their poor, twisted legs, their crushed heads,
their flattened bodies, their pitiful, dying struggles,
would melt a heart of stone. No more those graceful
[Page 176] throats would whistle through
the April airs, beneath the early suns and the late
morning stars. The sweet, wild chorus was stilled forever.
By
the time Jimmy and his father arrived, crowds of people
had descended with stones and sticks—anything
they could lay their hands on—and were beating
the remaining spark of life out of the helpless birds,
then seizing and quarrelling over the bodies, without
one word of pity or regret for the dreadful catastrophe,
so long as they could secure the coveted specimens of
this rare migratory bird. Then Jimmy noticed that some
few had actually escaped injury, but, before he could
reach them, older and stronger people had rushed upon
the terrified and weakened creatures, and were clubbing
them to death.
“Stop it! stop it!”
he shouted. “Those birds are not injured! Save
them! Let them go!”
“Not if I know
it!” yelled back a huge fellow with the face of
a greedy demon. “Why, these birds are worth twenty
dollars apiece!” he blurted, “and I’m
going to have every one of them.”
Down, down, down, went one after
another as they tried to rise and spread their magnificent
wings, until only one remained. With the quickness of
a cat, Jimmy flung his thin little body between the
flopping victim and the upraised club.
“You strike that swan
if you dare!” he cried, fiercely, glaring up at
the would-be murderer with indignant eyes.
“Hello, bantam! You after
twenty dollars, too?” sneered the man.
“No; I’m after this
swan’s life, and I’m going to have it!”
growled the boy. “The bird is mine!”
“Yes, Jimmy,” said
his father, approaching sadly. “And it’s
the only one that has life. I have counted one hundred
and sixteen, either dead or slain.Ӡ
[Page 177]
The boy took off his coat, wrapping
it about the superb bird, then carried it carefully
to the elevator, and, soon after reaching the summit
of the shore, had it fed and tended, then gently crated
for shipment home. The tired bird submitted without
protest to being measured. From tip to tail it measured
fifty-one inches, with the magnificent expansion of
wing of eighty-one inches, the only survivor of that
glorious white company that was whistling its way to
the North. And it was the kindly, boyish hand of little
Jimmy Duffy, youngest member of the “Animal Rescue
Club,” that had saved it from a crueller death
than even old, heartless Niagara could have given it,
and it was his hands that gently removed the bars of
the crate in the Duffys’ big backyard.
“There, you beautiful
thing,” he said, as he removed the last slat,
“stay with us if you can, but go when and where
you want. There are no prisons around here.”
But the next morning the swan
was still in the yard. The ducks talked to it, but its
sad, wondering eyes and listless wings spoke louder
than words of its weariness and woe. Scores of boys
came to see it that day, and the evening brought Benson’s
father. After hearing the story all he could day was:
“It’s a good thing for me that I was not
there. I’m a pretty big fellow, and can lick chaps
that are even bigger than I am, and if I’d caught
that brute killing those uninjured birds, I’d
have thrown him into the Whirlpool Rapids, sure as you’re
born; I’d be in jail now, and probably hanged
in the autumn. Yes, taking it altogether, I’m
glad I wasn’t there!”
Of course, many of the townspeople
were for having Jimmy confine the bird, or at least
send it to a museum, or enclose it in a wire netting;
but the boy replied:
“No, thanks. I have seen
enough of them die, and I don’t want my swan to
die of a broken heart.”
But the swan stayed on day after
day, seemingly content and happy. Then there dawned
a beautiful day in May. The sun shone hot and level
on the little back yard. [Page 178]
In the middle of the morning a clear, musical, distinct
whistle brought Jimmy running to the side door. The
swan’s head was uplifted, its crimson beak pointing
away from the sun. Presently it spread its regal wings
and floated up, up, up. One more clear, lingering whistle,
and it was away, while Jimmy watched it with eyes both
dumbly sad and unspeakably glad, until it was but a
radiant white speck sailing into the north, to search
for others of its kind. [Page 179]
*
Fact observed by the writer’s brother. [back]
† It is a
fact that occurred in April, 1908, that a company of
one hundred and sixteen whistling swans were carried
over Niagara Falls, and that the only one that escaped
the weapons of destroyers was rescued by a little boy,
and cared for exclusively by him. [back]
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