152 What Birds Have Done With Me 



to the nicely adjusted fragments of the greatest 

 wing bone; the difficulty came in when we at- 

 tempted to hold the broken wing in its proper 

 place. So to speak, Mr. Esau refused to carry 

 his arm in a sling and if there can be any such 

 thing as silent eloquence, he eloquently announced 

 his unalterable determination to die first. With 

 some feeling akin to what Darius Green enter- 

 tained for the Wren, my gray matter, plus that 

 of a host of helpful friends, was combined in an 

 effort to out-wit a single broken-winged, improp- 

 erly nourished mite of a bird, who scored over us 

 as the afore-mentioned Wren did over Darius, in 

 his attempts at flight. A four-tailed bandage, the 

 size of six postage stamps, laid out two and two, 

 with a tape sewed to each corner and holes cut 

 for the legs, when afore-mentioned tapes were 

 criss-crossed and tied over the back, was impul- 

 sively called Eureka, but should have been Ap- 

 pomattox, for in less than six hours I found my- 

 self kneeling upon the worthless contrivance and 

 humbly proffering my "Catlin" to Mr. Esau and 

 expressing the hope that he would condescend to 

 use my Rush Diploma as his door-mat. Though 

 bull-dog tugging at the bandage would not re- 

 lieve him of it, it never failed to pull it around 

 enough so that he could not use his legs, and en- 

 able him to turn turtle ; the sight of his red keel 



