The Golden Bird | Page 5

hens in the bushes to
come to him immediately. First he called invitingly while I held my
breath, and then he commanded as he scratched for lost crumbs in the
white dust of the Riverfield ribbon, but the foolish creatures only
huddled and squeaked, and at a few cautious steps I took in their
direction, they showed a decided threat of vanishing forever into the
woods.
"Oh, what will I do, Mr. G. Bird?" I asked in despair, with a real sob in
my throat as I looked toward the family coach, from which I could hear
a happy and animated discussion of Plato's Republic going on between
the two old gentlemen who had thirty years' arrears in argument and
conversation to make up. I could see that no help would come from that
direction. "I can't lose them forever," I said again, and this time there
was the real sob arising unmistakably in my voice.
"Just stand still, and I'll call them to you," came a soft, deep voice out
of the forest behind me, and behold, a man stood at my side!
The man's name is Adam.
"Now give me a cracker and watch 'em come," he said, as he came
close to my side and took a biscuit from my surprised and nerveless
hand. "Ah, but you are one beauty, aren't you?" he further remarked,
and I was not positively sure whether he meant me or the Golden Bird
until I saw that he had reached down and was stroking Mr. G. Bird with
a delighted hand. "Chick, chick, chick!" he commanded, with a note
that was not at all unlike the commanding one the Sultan had used a
few minutes past, only more so, and in less than two seconds all those
foolish hens were scrambling around our feet. In fact, the command in
his voice had been so forcible that I myself had moved several feet
nearer to him until I, too, was in the center of my scrambling, clucking
Bird venture.
I don't like beautiful men. I never did. I think that a woman ought to

have all the beauty there is, and I feel that a man who has any is in
some way dishonest, but I never before saw anything like that person
who had come out of the woods to the rescue of my family fortune, and
I simply stared at him as he stood with a fluff of seething white wings
around his feet and towered against the green gray of an old tree that
hung over the side of the road. He was tall and broad, but lithe and
lovely like some kind of a woods thing, and heavy hair of the same
brilliant burnished red that I had seen upon the back of a prize Rhode
Island Red in the lovely water-color plates in my chicken book,--which
had tempted me to buy "red" until I had read about the triumphs of the
Leghorn "whites,"--waved close to his head, only ruffling just over his
ears enough to hide the tips of them. His eyes were set so far back
under their dark, heavy, red eyebrows that they seemed night-blue with
their long black fringe of lashes. His face was square and strong and
gentle, and the collar of his gray flannel shirt was open so that I could
see that his head was set on his wide shoulders with lines like an old
Greek masterpiece. Gray corduroy trousers were strapped around his
waist by a wide belt made of some kind of raw-looking leather that was
held together by two leather lacings, while on his feet were a kind of
sandal shoes that appeared to be made of the same leather. He must
have constructed both belt and shoes himself, and he hadn't any hat at
all upon his crimson-gold thatch of hair. I looked at him so long that I
had to look away, and then when I did I looked right back at him
because I couldn't believe that he was true.
"Now I'm going to pick them up gently, two at a time, tie their feet
together with a piece of this string, and hand them to you to put inside
the carriage. I'll catch the cock first, the handsome old sport," and as
Pan spoke, he began to suit his actions to his words with amazing tact
and skill. I shall always be glad that the first chicken I ever held in my
arms was put into them gently by that woods man, and that it was the
Golden Bird himself. "Put him in and shut the door, and he'll calm the
ladies as you bring them to him," he commanded as he bent down and
lifted two of the Bird brides and began to tie