Aunt Katy insisted that he wouldn't take it to heart; that he would be tame in a few days, and eat out of our hands: in short, she insisted that he would consider himself a fortunate bird to belong to us.
Aunt Katy, you must know, is a nice old lady. We use that term with a meaning; for, though "black as the tents of Kedar," she is a perfect lady in her manners: she was born and brought up, and has always lived, in this neighborhood, and knows every bird in the forest as familiarly as if they were all her own chickens; and she has great skill in getting them to come to her to be caught.
Well, our red-bird was named Phœbus, of a kind that Audubon calls a cardinal-grossbeak; and a fine, large, roomy cage was got down for him, which was of old tenanted by a very merry and rackety cat-bird; and then the question arose, "What shall we do with him?" For you see, girls, having a soft place in our heart for all pets, instead of drowning some of our kittens in the fall, as reasonable people should, we were seduced by their gambols and their prettiness to let them all grow up together; and the result is, that we have now in our domestic retinue four adult cats of most formidable proportions. "These be the generations" of our cats: first, Liz, the mother; second, Peter, her oldest son; third, Anna and Lucinda, her daughters. Peter is a particularly martial, combative, obnoxious beast, very fluffy and fussy, with great, full-moon, yellow eyes, and a most resounding, sonorous voice. There is an immense deal of cat in Peter. He is concentrated cathood, a nugget of pure cat; and in fact we are all a little in awe of him. He rules his mother and sisters as if he had never heard of Susan Anthony and Mrs. Stanton. Liz, Anna, and Lucinda are also wonderfully-well-developed cats, with capital stomachs. Now comes the problem: the moment the red-bird was let into his cage, there was an instant whisk of tails, and a glare of great yellow eyes, and a sharpening of eye-teeth, that marked a situation. The Scripture tells us a time is coming when the lion shall lie down with the lamb; but that time hasn't come in Florida. Peter is a regular heathen, and hasn't the remotest idea of the millennium. He has much of the lion in him; but he never could lie down peaceably with the lamb, unless indeed the lamb were inside of him, when he would sleep upon him without a twinge of conscience. Unmistakably we could see in his eyes that he considered Phœbus as caught for his breakfast; and he sat licking his chops inquiringly, as who should ask, "When will the cloth be laid, and things be ready?"
Now, the party to whom the red-bird was given is also the patron-saint, the "guide, philosopher, and friend," of the cats. It is she who examines the plates after each meal, and treasures fragments, which she cuts up and prepares for their repast with commendable regularity. It is she who presides and keeps order at cat-meals; and forasmuch as Peter, on account of his masculine strength and rapacity, is apt to get the better of his mother and sisters, she picks him up, and bears him growling from the board, when he has demolished his own portion, and is proceeding to eat up theirs.
Imagine, now, the cares of a woman with four cats and a bird on her mind! Phœbus had to be carefully pinned up in a blanket the first night; then the cage was swung by strong cords from the roof of the veranda. The next morning, Peter was found perched on top of it, glaring fiendishly. The cage was moved along; and Peter scaled a pillar, and stationed himself at the side. To be sure, he couldn't get the bird, as the slats were too close for his paw to go through; but poor Phœbus seemed wild with terror. Was it for this he left his native wilds—to be exposed in a prison to glaring, wild-eyed hyenas and tigers?
The cats were admonished, chastised, "scat"-ed, through all the moods and tenses; though their patroness still serves out their commons regularly, determined that they shall not have the apology of empty stomachs. Phœbus is evidently a philosopher—a bird of strong sense. Having found, after two or three days' trial, that the cats can't get him; having clusters of the most delicious rice dangling from the roof of his cage, and fine crisp lettuce verdantly inviting through the bars—he seems to have accepted the situation; and, when nobody is in the veranda, he uplifts his voice in song. "What cheer! what cheer!" he says, together with many little twitters and gurgles for which we have no musical notes. Aunt Katy promises to bring him a little wife before long; and, if that be given him, what shall hinder him from being happy? As April comes in, they shall build their nest in the cage, and give us a flock of little red-birds.
Well, girls, we are making a long letter; and this must do for this week.
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