A BANDED HOMING PIGEON whose outfit was the Signal Corps had often observed a charming dovecote in the steeple of an old church, while flying his missions. He dreamed of settling down in the dovecote when all the wars were ended and all the guns were cold. When he realized this wasn’t going to happen during his lifetime, he decided to go WOLO, which means We Only Live Once, in Pigeon English. And so he came in for a landing on the threshold of the dovecote. Each pigeon living there figured out who he was while he was still a hundred yards away.
“It’s Larkinvar, come out of the Nest!” cried Morna Dove.
“It’s Lindbird!” cried her mother.
“Nuts and gargoyles!” growled her father. “He’s a stool pigeon.”
“He’s wearing one handcuff,” pointed out a male fantail.
“He’s broken away from the cops.”
“I think he’s a jailbird, escaped from the penitentiary,” said the fantail’s brother. “He has a serial number.” For the army pigeon was now so close that all the dovecoters could see his number clearly on the band about one leg.
“He’s a passenger pigeon,” said a ground dove, who had not been around much but had read a great deal.
“Then he’s extinct, or hiding,” said the ground dove’s uncle, who had not read anything but had been around a great deal.
“He’s a fellow passenger pigeon, and they’re the worst of all,” piped up a cocky young male bird, who hung around cornices. And so only the females, who had mistaken the newcomer for Larkinvar and Lindbird, welcomed him. The others pushed him off the threshold, before he could take off his hat, or catch his breath, or tell his name. Number 137,968, homing pigeon, attached to the United States Signal Corps, turned his back sorrowfully upon his dreamcote and went back to work for the Department of the Army.
MORAL: There comes an end of toil and fun, but idle guesswork’s never done. Or: This, alas, is sadly so; folks would rather believe than know.
Ed. Note: Thurber wrote three versions of this fable.