Chapter 7

An Owl and an Egg

As he came near the house, Jean saw something which made him feel excited and delighted. A carriage was just pulling up in front of the Audubon country place.

“Could it be Father?” Jean wondered, as he watched a figure step from the carriage. Then he saw that it was his father. He would have known that stocky figure in the old sea jacket a mile away.

He ran faster, forgetting the heat and the dust, and nearly knocked the Captain down with his joyful hug.

“I have brought you a present I know you will like,” said the Captain later on. He took a big square box from among the many trunks and boxes he had brought with him.

“Open it now. I want to see what you will say,” insisted the Captain. Jean cut the rope and lifted the lid of the box. He looked. Then he stared.

“It is ... it is the ghost!” he whispered.

It had the same staring yellow eyes. It had the brown and yellowish feathers, so like a cat’s fur. And it had the cruel, curved nose like a parrot’s beak.

The Captain laughed and laughed. “Ghost, indeed,” he said. “That is an owl, my boy—a genuine owl from the faraway land of North America!”

Jean touched the owl with a careful finger, and the Captain laughed again. “He will not hurt you, my boy,” he said. “He is a stuffed owl, and he came from the finest taxidermist in Philadelphia!”

Jean lifted the bird out and looked at it. It really looked almost alive. Its yellow glass eyes looked just like the ghost’s eyes. Its two feet were clutching a piece of wood.

“It is beautiful, Father, beautiful!” he cried. “I want to make a picture of it.”

He thought a minute.

“I wouldn’t draw my owl looking straight ahead like this, holding a piece of wood between its claws. I would draw my owl in the dark corner of an old barn holding a mouse in its bill—a live mouse, Father!”

Again Jean paused for a minute. Then he said, “If I hadn’t already made plans for tomorrow, I would see if I could find my owl.”

Captain Audubon smiled at his son. “I hope you have included your lessons in your plans. They must come first.”

***

“In the country,” thought Jean, waking up early, “I don’t need an hourglass—I can tell time by the birds!”

At the very crack of dawn, and long before sunrise, the swallows began to chirp in their sweet, shrill voices. Jean knew he would not need to get up yet, but could turn over and sleep some more.

Then the pigeons joined in the song. Wheeling out from their attic home in the barn they cooed and chanted. Jean began to think about all his plans for that day and to wonder what the weather had in store for him.

A few minutes later the blackbirds began their song in the cherry trees, and he sat up in bed and yawned to make himself wide awake.

When the finches added their low, sweet, happy notes to the chorus, he got up and dressed.

There was only one shadow on the golden sunshine of these summer days in the country, and that was the shadow of lessons. Some lessons were not so bad, but lessons in mathematics were awful. And, sad to say, the Captain thought that mathematics was the most important thing that Jean needed to learn.

“Without mathematics you can never be a captain,” he said sternly. “You cannot even be a rear gunner—without mathematics!”

The midsummer morning was sweet. Jean listened to the swallows, to the pigeons, and to the blackbirds. Suddenly he had an idea. He would get up with the blackbirds this morning and not wait for the finches. Blackbird time was very early—the Captain would not yet be up.

Jean slipped softly into his clothes and started down the stairway. He crept past his father’s door, as silently as a field mouse.

Ah! He had made it! He was outside the house and free—free as a bird!

A skylark sprang into the air singing, and the boy watched it until it disappeared into the sky. He felt thrilled. For a moment he felt as if he were in the tiny body of the bird, rising against the wind, singing to the morning sun!

This morning he wanted to find some hedge sparrow’s eggs to put with his collection. He walked slowly along the hedgerow, looking among the thick green leaves for the little bluish-white eggs that would be hidden carefully away from the field mice and snakes.

Soon he heard the mellow “K-k-k-k-kowkow-owkow” of the cuckoo. He sank softly down in the grass to watch, for he had learned that he could see many wonderful things if he only sat and watched.

When he had sat very quietly for several minutes, looking this way and that, he saw the cuckoo sitting on the ground in the grass. Neither the boy nor the bird moved. He noticed the red circles about the bird’s eyes, its black bill, and the grayish white throat. He wished for his crayons.

After many minutes the bird rose into the air, chanting its mellow, clucking song. “The cuckoo is looking for something, too,” thought the boy. He kept still.

He crouched low, watching. He had heard that the careless cuckoo never builds a nest, but lays its eggs in the nests of other birds to be hatched. Now he was going to see.

The brownish, pigeon-shaped bird flew straight to the hedge. The boy held his breath in anticipation. In a minute or so the cuckoo came out again and flew gaily off, chanting its “K-k-k-k-kowkow-ow-kow!”

Jean ran swiftly to the hedge and pushed aside the leaves. What he saw delighted him. There, carefully built in the heart of the bush, was a little hedge sparrow’s nest. He bent low. He saw five tiny bluish white eggs with rusty spots on them. And right in the center of the sparrow’s eggs he saw another egg—a bigger one, of a different color—the greenish egg of the cuckoo that did not build her own nest.

Very carefully Jean lifted the pale green egg from the sparrow’s nest.

“A treasure I have been wanting for a long time!” he thought happily. No gold-hunter would have been more excited or overjoyed than he was to possess the cuckoo egg. (Figure 7.1)

Figure 7.1: In his pocket was a great sack of candy, and in his hand, tenderly held, was the cuckoo’s egg.

Jean was surprised to see how high the sun had risen. And suddenly he realized that he was hungry. He was hungry and quite a long way from home, and breakfast would be long over in the kitchen of Wheatstacks.

This did not worry Jean. The village of Couëron was almost in sight, and there were two candy stores and a bakery in Couëron. He had no money, but that did not matter. He knew that his stepmother had arranged for him to buy all the candy and cakes he wanted on credit.

Soon, humming happily, he came back down the road. In his pocket was a great sack of candy, and in his hand, tenderly held, was the cuckoo’s egg.

“See, Maman!” he cried, as he arrived home. His stepmother and his father were sitting on the breezy balcony which overlooked the river. “See what I have found!”

The Captain looked sternly at Jean.

“You have been to the village,” he said. “You have been to the village when you should have been home studying your mathematics!”

Madame Audubon put her arms around Jean and kissed him on each cheek.

“He went on an errand for me, Captain!” she said. “He knew my sweet tooth was aching and aching for some aniseed bonbons! Is he not the dearest and kindest son in all France!”

“And you,” whispered Jean into her ear, “are the sweetest maman in all the world!” (Figure 7.2)

Figure 7.2: