The Golden Bird | Page 4

forgotten exists, the
two old boys on the front seat hummed and chuckled happily while I
breathed in great gulps of a large, meadow-sweet spring tang that
seemed to fairly soak into the circulation of my heart. The February day
was cool with yet a kind of tender warmth in its little gust of Southern
wind that made me feel as does that brand of very expensive Rhine
wine which Albert at the Salemite on Forty-second Street in New York
keeps for Gale Beacon specially, and which makes Gale so furious for
you not to recognize, remember about, and comment upon at his really
wonderful dinners to bright and shining lights in art and literature.
Returning from New York to the Riverfield Road through the Harpeth
Valley, I also discovered upon the damsel Spring a hint of a soft young
costume of young green and purple and yellow that was as yet just a
mist being draped over her by the Southern wind.
"I feel like the fairy princess being driven into a land of enchantment,
Mr. Golden Bird," I remarked as I leaned back upon the soft old
cushions and took in the first leisurely breath of the air of the open road
that my lungs had ever inhaled: one simply gulps air when seated in a
motor-car. "It is all so simple and easy and--"
Just at this moment happened the first real adventure of my quest, and
at that time it seemed a serious one, though now I would regard it as of
very little moment. Suddenly there came the noise of snipping cords,
the feeling of jar and upheaval, and before I could turn more than
half-way around for purposes of observation, the entire feminine Bird
family in their temporary crate abode slid down into the dust of the
road with a great crash. I held my breath while, with a jolt and a bounce
and a squeak of the heavy old springs, Uncle Cradd brought the

ancestral family coach to a halt about ten feet away from the wreck,
which was a mêlée of broken timber, squeaking voices, and flapping
wings. As soon as I recovered from the shock I sprang from my
cushions beside Mr. G. Bird, who was fairly yelling clucks of
command at this family-to-be, and ran to their assistance. Now, I am
very long and fleet of limb, but those white Leghorn ladies were too
swift for me, and before I reached the wreck, they had all ten
disentangled themselves from the crushed timbers and had literally
taken to the woods, through which the Riverfield ribbon was at that
moment winding itself. Clucking and chuckling, they concealed
themselves in an undergrowth of coral-strung buck bushes, little scrub
cedars, and dried oak leaves, and I could hear them holding a council of
war that sounded as if they were to depart forever to parts unknown. In
a twinkling of an eye I saw my future fortune literally take wings, and
in my extremity I cried aloud.
"Oh, call them all back, Mr. Golden Bird," I pleaded.
"Now, Nancy, that is always what I said about hens. They are such
pesky womanish things that it's beneath the dignity of a man to bother
with 'em. I haven't had one on the place for twenty years. We'll just turn
this rooster loose with them and we can go on home in peace," said
Uncle Cradd as he peered around the side of the coach while father's
mild face appeared on the other side. As he spoke, he reached back and
released my Golden Bird from his crate and sent him flying out into the
woods in the direction of his family.
"Oh, they are the only things in the world that stand between me and
starvation," I wailed, though not loud enough for either father or Uncle
Cradd to hear. "Please, please, Golden Bird, come back and bring the
others with you," I pleaded as I held out my hand to the proud white
Sultan, who had paused by the roadside on his way to his family and
was now turning bright eyes in the direction of my outstretched hand.
In all the troubles and trials through which that proud Mr. G. Bird and I
went hand in hand, or rather wing in hand, in which I was at times hard
and cold and disappointed in him, I have never forgotten that he turned
in his tracks and walked majestically back to my side and peered into

the outstretched hand with a trustful and inquiring peck. Some kind
fortune had brought it to pass that I held the package of tea biscuits in
my other hand, and in a few breathless seconds he was pecking at one
and calling to the foolish, faithless lot of huddled