Chapter IV The Bird-Catcher
“Take heed, boy, and pay great attention to my words!” said Kummas to his now ten-year-old Christlieb. “Look well at this thing which resembles a lady without legs or arms. See how its head is thrown back, with its round curls on each side, while its penetrating voice is even clearer than the voice of any dame. Now, what is the youngster laughing at? Eh! young sir?”
“It is only a violin, and not like a lady,” said Christlieb laughing.
“Is the chick wiser than the hen? I tell you,” said Kummas half scolding, “it is a lady; and violin, or violincello, is only its nickname. The throat of no lady, not even of a Catalina, can bring forth more beautiful and sustained notes than can the black throat of my violin. It is wonderful how the most insignificant of things may become, in the hands of a clever man, the source of inexhaustible treasures. Only think!—a few horse hairs rubbed against a few strings of cat-gut, placed across a piece of hollowed-out fir-wood, can be made to produce the most delicious tones! I tell you, boy, that a violin is a more productive mine than the famed one of Frieberg in the kingdom of Saxony. There a hundred miners do not dig out so much silver in a whole week as a single man, called Paganini, gets for one night’s playing on the violin. But the lad looks at me as a cow does at a new gate! Well, well, you will understand this better by and by. Here, take hold of the violin with the left hand, and handle the bow so (showing the child how to use it). You must move the right hand regularly up and down, while the left hand, on the contrary, must spring nimbly like a squirrel from one place to another on the touch-board. If you wish to learn how to draw a good bow, place yourself in a corner, so that the wall may prevent your elbow from going out too far. The four strings are called G, D, A, E; but you will remember this rhyme perhaps better,—Giess dir anis ein!”
“Why not rather caraway-seed or peppermint?” asked a strange voice at the door. “Why must it be precisely anise, which, besides, is not good for the boy? Good-day, neighbour. I suppose you have never taken a glass of anything since you took home the foundling, and adopted him?”
Saying these words, the speaker came into the room. It was the aged Butter, the bird-catcher,—a good customer for the cages of Kummas.
“Good day, friend Butter,” answered Kummas cheerfully. “What do we want more? We have now Butter in the house, and the bread must be forthcoming.”
“The butter, I fear, will not taste well,” replied the former; “it is too old. But tell me, is my bird-cage ready?”
“All except a few wires,” said Kummas; “and I will send Christlieb with it immediately. Are you going to market already? Have you caught many birds to-day?”
“None worth speaking of; only a few larks and chaffinches. The larger birds come later;” and the old man drew out a lot of dead birds from under his cloak.
Christlieb quickly threw down the violin to look at the birds.
“Take care; they will bite you!” said Butter in a joke, shaking them in the face of the child.
“Poor things! how pretty they are with their beautiful feathers! But why are they all dead?” asked Christlieb in a tone of pity.
“Would you like to eat them alive?” said Butter.
“What!” exclaimed the boy in astonishment; “are they to be eaten?”
“Wherefore not, young friend?”
“The creatures are so very small, and when their feathers are off, they will be still less.”
“That is quite true,” replied Butter; “such a bird makes but two bites; and if one does not wish to leave the table as hungry as when he sat down, he must eat a dozen of them at least. Therefore rich people are rightly called bird-devourers.”
“How much does one cost?” inquired Christlieb.
“For a halfpenny I will give you a lark or two finches.”
“For a single halfpenny!” repeated the boy, much surprised. “Their feathers alone are worth more.”
“I will make you a present of them,” rejoined Butter, “if you will be at the trouble of plucking them off.”
“Ah!” said Christlieb, “if they were alive, I would buy two chaffinches.”
“I have a word to say to that,” began Kummas; “where will you find meat for them?”
Christlieb made no answer; and Butter, changing the subject, said, “Neighbour, it is pretty cold in this room of yours; what will it be when the new year comes with its twenty degrees colder?”
“What!” exclaimed Kummas; “do you say it is cold here? It is an utter impossibility; for this morning I put into the stove sixteen dollars worth of wood!”
“Don’t tell me such nonsense! who would believe that?”
“Well, then, look in and convince yourself,” replied Kummas. “My violincello is burning there, and I can show you by writing that it cost me sixteen dollars.”
“So, so, ah! I understand,” continued Butter, laughing. “But what a dreadful spendthrift you are! No millionaire, no, not even a king, burns such precious wood.”
“Therefore I can imagine myself somebody!” retorted Kummas, laughing heartily.
Christlieb, meanwhile, had been carefully examining the birds as they lay on the table. “I do not see,” he said, turning round, “how they have been killed.”
“That would not be easy to see,” said Butter; “we are not on much ceremony with them, and just squeeze them to death in our hand. Look, I take my thumb and forefinger and press their little heart close to their wing. They open their beak, turn round their little eyes, and away they are.”
At this description of how the poor things were put to death, the eyes of Christlieb filled with tears. With secret horror he looked at the unpitying, murderous fingers of the old man, whom his foster-father was accompanying to the door. He felt as if his cruel hand were pressing his own heart, and as if he could scarcely breathe. With a deep sigh, he said to his father when he came back, “And must the poor larks and chaffinches who sing so sweetly really be eaten?”
“Yes,” answered Kummas; “and I do not think it altogether right. To eat singing birds is much the same as if I were to put violincellos and violins into the stove instead of common wood. The burning of the old piece of lumber, that was not worth any more mending, and in which you could no longer lie, was a mere exception. But truly, the greatest of all gluttons, the most voracious of all animals, is man. There is nothing safe from his palate. Earth, and air, and sea, the wilderness, and every corner of the world is ransacked for dainties to gratify it. However, I believe a simple meal is much better for health; one which willingly permits the feathered singers to pass their short lives unmolested.”
When the bird-cage was finished, Christlieb was sent off with it to the cottage of the old man, which was situated a short way within a small wood. As the boy approached it, he found fresh cause for grief. He saw on many of the trees pieces of bent willow, to which were fastened loops of horse-hair; and here and there a poor little bird hanging in them, allured by the sight of the red berries close to where the nets were hung. He saw, at the same time, various other kinds of snares laid to entrap the unwary tenants of the grove.
For the first time, Christlieb entered the dwelling of the bird-catcher. He found it filled with cages, from which sounded all manner of chirping, piping, and singing. There was no one in the room except a little girl about his own age, who was busy playing on a small pipe the first part of an old march to four bulfinches.
Glad at having an excuse for giving up for a time her wearisome task, Malchen got up to receive the visitor, and take the cage from him. When Christlieb had softly delivered it into her hands, his whole attention was absorbed by the pretty prisoners, whose beautiful plumage he admired exceedingly; while Malchen answered all his questions with the utmost simplicity and childish pleasure.
In one cage there were chaffinches, in another larks, in others blackbirds, crossbills, lapwings, thrushes, and Bohemian chatterers and starlings. Christlieb was especially attracted by the sight of two greenfinches, who, by a singular contrivance, pulled up and down by their feet two small pails, in which was their food, holding them by a string attached to the cage for that purpose, until they were satisfied. This sight was, however, by no means pleasing to Christlieb; it rather made him sad, when he saw how often the pail slipped away before the poor little bird could get either one grain of seed, or one drop of water.
“How are they taught to do this?” asked Christlieb, surprised at the seemingly rational act of the tiny creatures.
“By hunger and thirst,” replied Malchen. “Before they can be brought to pull up their seed and water, they are almost dying of hunger.”
“Do they likewise sing?” he again asked.
“Not much,” answered the girl; “only a few notes. But do you know that birds and animals have a language of their own?” And she began to tell the wondering boy a great many things which she had heard her grandfather repeat.
“I should like to be able to know also what they say,” answered Christlieb.
“You must just pay great attention,” said the little Malchen, “and you can learn it yourself.”
“Are all birds here to be killed?” asked Christlieb.
“No; not these ones,” replied Malchen. “They are sold alive. Only we cannot keep them long, for then their meat costs more than they are worth.”
“I should like very much to have a goldfinch,” said Christlieb, “or a thrush.”
“Oh, no!” cried the little girl; “a starling would be much nicer; it is such a droll bird, and can learn to speak like a man.”
“Is that true?” asked Christlieb doubtingly.
“Quite true; only his tongue must be loosened,” replied Malchen.
Christlieb determined to try and get as much money as would buy a speaking bird; and in this hope he took great pains to learn to play on the violin, in the expectation of learning something.
How joyfully he ran home one day, when a traveller had given him twopence for playing a tune, and accompanying it with his clear sweet voice. This was the beginning of a treasure, which every week he divided most faithfully with his dear foster-father.