SOME FEATHERED FOLK. 



MARTHA M. WILLIAMS. 



Tom Coffin was the most engaging of 

 , hem all, a cardinal, trapped in time of 

 miow, and as full of fight as any real car- 

 dinal that ever ruffed it in the red robe. 

 It was his fighting quality indeed which 

 darned him his name. Cooper's Tom Cof- 

 (in never fought more gamely. The red 

 l)ird bit his captor's fingers almost to the 

 |)one before he suffered himself to be 



to think they would be the finest sort of 

 eating if only he could manage to get 

 them loose. When his cage was set open 

 he would fly out, and across the room, to 

 perch on her finger, where he would ruffle 

 his red throat and twitter loudly, if she 

 said, "Tom, tell me good morning." 



A water bucket sat, always open, in the 

 back hall, some little way off the room 



taken from 



the trap and after 



he was caged, would ruffle his 



feathers, drop his wings, make 



a loud, scowling noise, and 



try to peck the eyes of any 



head which came incautiously 



near the bars. 



A week of kindness changed all that. 

 He quit scolding when approached, twit- 

 tering a welcome instead, the while drop- 

 ping his wings in gentle deprecation. By 

 and by he grew so tame he was given the 

 freedom of the whole house. It was pretty 

 then to see him fly upon the head of his 

 mistress, gently tweak her hair, then make 

 a fluttering hop to her shoulder and peck 

 at her earrings. The earrings were tiny 

 golden half moons, and Tom Coffin seemed 



TOM'S ORCHARD NEMESIS 



where his cage 

 hung- Tom often 

 hopped upon the 

 bucket's rim and 

 balanced there daint- 

 ily a minute; but 

 never tried to touch 

 the water even when 

 the bucket was so full he might easily 

 have sipped it. But as certainly as 

 water was left standing in a shallow 

 basin on the table beside the bucket, 

 Tom plunged into it, splashing and 

 spluttering to his heart's content, seeming 

 to prefer it infinitely to his own bath in- 

 side the cage. When he came out of the 

 water he hopped laboriously upon the ba- 

 sin rim, stood still a minute, then ruffled 

 every feather and gave himself a tremen- 



171 



