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Birds and All Nature, Vol. V, No 5, May 1899

<h2>AN ABANDONED HOME.</h2> BY ELANORA KINSLEY MARBLE. <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse">"Say, was thy little mate unkind,</div> <div class="verse">And heard thee as the careless wind?</div> <div class="verse">Oh! nought but love and sorrow joined</div> <div class="verse indent-1_5">Such notes of woe could waken."</div> </div></div> CHAPTER II. <div><ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_w_alt.jpg" width-obs="79" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div> "WELL, I'm glad to get over to this tree again out of the sound of mother's voice. Duty to my husband; that's all she could talk about. All wives help to build the home-nest," she says, "and indeed do the most toward making it snug and comfortable, and that I must give up my old pastimes and pleasures and settle down to housekeeping. Well, if I must, I must, but oh! how I wish I had never got married." Not a word was exchanged between the pair that night, and on the following morning Mrs. B., with a disdainful toss of her head, ironically announced her willingness to become a hod-carrier, a mason, or a carpenter, according the desires of her lord. They elected to build their nest in the maple-tree, and you can imagine the bickerings of the pair as the house progressed. Mrs. B's. groans and bemoaning over the effect, such "fetchings and carryings" would have upon her health, already delicate. How often she was compelled from weakness and fatigue to tuck her head under her wing and rest, while Mr. B. carried on the work tireless and uncomplaining. "She may change when she has the responsibility of a family," he mused, "and perhaps become a helpmeet after all. I must not be too severe with her, so young and thoughtless and inexperienced." So the nest at length was completed. "My!" said a sharp-eyed old lady bird, whose curiosity led her to take a peep at the domicile one day while Mrs. B. was off visiting with one of her neighbors, "such an uncomfortable, ragged looking nest; it is not even domed as a nest should be when built in a tree. And then the lining! If the babies escape drowning in the first down-pour, I am sure they'll be crippled for life, if not hung outright, when they attempt to leave the nest. You know how dangerous it is when they get their feet entangled in the rag ravelings and coils of string, and if you'll believe me that shiftless Jenny has just laid a lot of it around the edges of the nest without ever tucking it in. The way girls are brought up now-a-days! Accomplishments indeed! I think," with a sniff, "if she had been taught something about housekeeping instead of how to arrange her feathers prettily, to dance and sing, and fly in graceful circles it would have been much better for poor Mr. B. Poor fellow, how I do pity him," and off the old lady flew to talk it over with another neighbor. Unlike some young wives of the sparrow family, Mrs. B. did not sit on the first almost spotless white egg which she deposited in the nest, but waited till four others, prettily spotted with brown, and black, and lavender lay beside it. "Whine, whine from morning till night!" cried her exasperated spouse after brooding had begun. "Sitting still so much, you say, doesn't agree with you. Your beauty is departing! You are growing thin and careworn! The little outings you take are only tantalizing. I am sure most wives wouldn't consider it a hardship to sit still and be fed with the delicious grubs and dainty tidbits which I go to such pains to fetch for you. That was a particularly fine grub I brought you this morning, and you ate it without one word of thanks, or even a look of gratitude. Nothing but complaints and tears! It is enough to drive any husband mad. I fly away in the morning with a heavy heart, and when I see and hear other sparrows hopping and singing cheerfully about their nests, receiving chirps of encouragement and [Pg 199] love from their sitting mates in return, I feel as though—as though I would rather die than be compelled to return to my unhappy home again." "Oh, you do?" sarcastically rejoined Mrs. B. "That is of a piece with the rest of your selfishness, Mr. Britisher, I am sure. Die and leave me, the partner of your bosom, to struggle through the brooding season and afterward bring up our large family the best I may. Oh," breaking into tears, "I wish I had never seen you, I really do." "Oh, yes, that has been the burden of your song for days, Mrs. B. I'm sure I have no reason to bless the hour I first laid eyes on you. Why, as the saying goes, Mrs. B., you threw yourself at my head at our very first meeting. And your precious mamma! How she did chirp about her darling Jenny's accomplishments and sweet amiability. Bah, what a ninny I was, to be sure! Oh, you needn't shriek and pluck the feathers from your head. Truth burns sometimes, I know, and—oh you are going to faint. Well faint!" and with an exclamation more forcible than polite Mr. B. flew away out of sight and sound of his weeping spouse. Wearily and sadly did Mrs. B. gaze out of her humble home upon darkening nature that evening. Many hours had passed since the flight of Mr. B., and the promptings of hunger, if nothing else, caused her to gaze about, wistfully hoping for his return. The calls of other birds to their mates filled the air, and lent an additional mournfulness to her lonely situation. "How glad I shall be to see him," she thought, her heart warming toward him in his absence. "I'll be cheerful and pretend to be contented after this, for I should be very miserable without him. I have been very foolish, and given him cause for all the harsh things he has said, perhaps. Oh, I do wish he would come." Night came down, dark and lonely. The voices and whirrings of her neighbors' wings had long since given place to stillness as one after another retired for the night. The wind swayed the branches of the tree in which she nested, their groanings and the sharp responses of the leaves filling the watcher's mind with gloomy forebodings. "I am so frightened," she murmured, "there is surely going to be a storm. Oh, I wish I had listened to Mr. B. and not insisted upon building our home in the crotch of this tree. He said it was not wise, and that we would be much safer and snugger under the eaves or in a hole in the wall or tree. But, no, I said, if I was compelled to stay at home every day and sit upon the nest it should be situated where I could look out and see my neighbors as they flew about. That was the reason I was determined it should not be domed. I wanted to see and be seen. Oh, how foolish I have been! What shall I do? What shall I do? I am afraid to leave the nest even for a minute for fear the eggs will get cold. Mr. B. would never forgive me, then, I am sure. But to stay out here in the storm, all alone. Oh, I shall die, I know I shall." Morning broke with all nature, after the rain, smiling and refreshed. Sleep had not visited the eyelids of the forsaken wife and with heavy eyes and throbbing brain, she viewed the rising dawn. "Alas," she sighed, as the whirr of wings and happy chirps of her neighbors struck upon her ears, "how can people be joyous when aching hearts and lives broken with misery lie at their very thresholds? The songs and gleeful voices of my neighbors fill me with anger and despair. I hate the world and everybody in it. I am cold and wet and hungry. I even hate the sun that has risen to usher in a new day. "I must make an effort," she murmured as the morning advanced and Mr. B. did not return, "and get home to mother. I am so weak I can scarcely stand, much less fly. I am burning with fever, and oh, how my head throbs! Such trouble and sorrow for one so young! I feel as though I shall never smile again." She steadied herself upon the edge of the nest and, turning, gazed wistfully and sadly upon the five tiny eggs, which she now sorrowed to abandon. "I may return," she sighed, "in time [Pg 200] to lend them warmth, or may find my dear mate performing that office in my absence. I will pray that it may be so as I fly. Praises would be mockery from my throat to-day, mockery!" <hr class="small" /> "Why, Jenny!" shrieked her mother as Mrs. B. sank down exhausted upon the threshold of her old home. "Whatever is the matter with you, and what has brought you here this time of day?" "I am hungry and sick, mother, and I feel as though, as though—I am going to die!" "And where is Mr. Britisher? You've no business to be hungry with a husband to care for you," tartly replied her mother, whilst bustling about to find a grub or two to supply her daughter's wants. "I have no husband, I fear, mother. He is—" "Dead!" shrieked the old lady. "Don't tell me Mr. Britisher is dead!" "Dead, or worse," sadly replied her daughter. "Worse? Heaven defend us! You don't mean he has deserted you?" "He left me yesterday afternoon in anger, and has not returned." "Highty, tighty, that's it, is it? Well, you have brought it all upon yourself and will have to suffer for it. I am sure your father talked enough about idleness and vanity for you to have heeded, and time and time again I have told you that every husband in the sparrow family is a bully and a tyrant, and every wife, if she expects to live happily, must let her mate have his own way." Mrs. B. sighed, and wearily dropped her head upon her breast. "You must go back," emphatically said her mother, "before the neighborhood gets wind of the affair. Mr. Britisher may be home this very minute, and glad enough he will be to see you, I am sure. So go back, dear, before the eggs grow cold and your neighbors will be none the wiser." "I am going, mother, but oh, I feel so ill, so ill!" said the bereaved little creature as she wearily poised for her flight. "She does look weakly and sick, poor thing," said the mother with a sigh watching her out of sight, "but I don't believe in interfering between husband and wife. Mr. Britisher, indeed, gave me to understand from the first that the less he saw of his mother-in-law the better, remarking that if that class would only stay at home and manage their own household affairs fewer couples, he thought, would be parted. I considered that a rather broad hint, and in consequence have never visited them since they began housekeeping. He has only gone off in a huff, of course, and everything will come out all right, I am sure." Ere nightfall, however, motherly anxiety impelled her to fly over to her daughter's home. Alas, only desolation and ruin were there. At the foot of the tree lay the form of Mrs. B. Exposure, sorrow, and excitement had done their work. It was a lifeless form which met her tearful gaze. The fate of Mr. Britisher was never known. Rumor assigned his absence to matrimonial infelicity, but his more charitable neighbors, as they dropped a tear to his memory, pictured his mangled form a victim to the wanton cruelty or mischievous sport of some idle boy. A gentleman passing by one day saw the dismantled nest upon the ground and carelessly stirred it with his cane. "What is that, uncle?" queried a little maid of some five summers who walked by his side. "That, little one," came the answer slowly and impressively, "is an abandoned home." "An abandoned home," I repeated, as his words floated up to my window. "Aye, truly to the casual observer that is all it seems, but, oh, how little do they dream of the folly, the suffering, the sad, almost tragic ending of the wee feathered couple whom I saw build that humble home." <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 202] <table class="sp2 mc w50" title="HYRAX." summary="HYRAX."> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="3"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%" src="images/i_020.jpg" width="600" height="451" alt="" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES. 5-99</td> <td class="x-smaller ac w40">HYRAX. ¾ Life-size.</td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">COPYRIGHT 1899, NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [Pg 203] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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