CHAPTER XXI

MORE ABOUT SISTER SUSIE

He kissed her and our Mary and hurried away. We turned our attention to Sister Susie, who, refreshed by her nap, was cooing and bowing very prettily to Mrs. Martin.

Such tricks as she played later on, on our good Missie! One day, when Mrs. Martin was presiding at a Red Cross meeting and begging ladies to give more money for wounded soldiers, she was first amazed, then overcome with laughter, to hear “Coo, oo-ooo—” coming from the knitting bag that she had brought in and put on the table before her.

Sister Susie thought all knitting bags were nests, and went into them and often laid eggs there. Mrs. Martin was trying to get a mate for her, but had not yet succeeded, so Daisy and I had her eggs boiled, and found them very good eating.

Sister Susie collected lots of money for the soldiers. When she cooed, that day at the meeting, Mrs. Martin lifted her out and put her beside the money box. She bowed and murmured so gently and coaxingly beside it that she charmed the money right out of the ladies’ pockets. That gave Missie the idea of taking her to the meetings, and finally she had a little box made in the shape of a dove, and Susie would stand beside it, and peck it, and coo, and ladies would fill it with money.

“Does Susie think it is a dove?” Billie asked me one day.

“Oh, no, she knows what it is; but doves like fun, as well as other birds, and it amuses her to beat it. One day she played a fine trick on Missie. She stepped in a knitting bag and went to sleep and Missie put it on her arm and went downtown. She noticed that the girl in a department store, who waited on her, looked queerly at her bag, and bye and bye she asked Missie if she was not afraid her pet would fly away.

“Mrs. Martin looked round, and there was Sister Susie with her head sticking out of the hole in her Red Cross bag.

“She took her out and set her on the palm of her hand. ‘You won’t leave me, will you, Susie?’ she said. ‘You want to stay with me, don’t you?’

“You see, she always had to ask questions that Susie could say ‘Yes’ to, for the bird did not know how to say ‘No.’

“‘Coo-ooo, oo,’ said Susie, a great many times and bowing very low and very politely.

“The girl was so delighted that she squealed with laughter, and other girls came to see what was amusing her. Mrs. Martin went on talking and Susie cooed so sweetly that there was soon a crowd round them.

“Missie asked her if she liked the store, and if she thought the people who came shopping could not afford to do a little more for Red Cross work.

“Susie was charmed to receive so much attention and the enthusiasm of the shoppers was so great that a manager came out of an office to see what the excitement was about. He asked if Missie would sell her bird for him to put in a cage to please the shoppers.

“Missie wheeled round to a woman who was carrying a baby and asked her if she would sell it.

“‘Not for a thousand dollars,’ she said. ‘My baby loves me.’

“‘And my bird loves me,’ said Mrs. Martin, ‘and I would not sell her for a thousand dollars, though I thank you, Mr. Manager, for your offer.’

“‘What theater do you exhibit her in?’ asked one of the women.

“That gave Missie a chance to tell them that she was not a bird-trainer. She was just a friend to birds and allowed them to develop along their own lines.

“The woman said that her husband had once been in the business and had exhibited trained dogs and horses, but she had made him give it up, when she discovered that his animals were all dull and dispirited, and that he educated them by means of sharp nails between his fingers that he pressed into them when he was pretending to stroke them.

“‘I caught him one day pulling out the teeth of a pony,’ she said, ‘because the pony bit him, and I tell you I gave him a tongue-lashing—and I threw out a can of paint that he used to cover the sores on his animals’ backs. “Let the public see the sores, me man,” I said, “and it’s good-bye to me if you don’t give up every one of those poor creatures. If I’d known you were in such a dirty business I’d never have married you.” So he said he’d keep me, being as I was the choicest and trickiest animal he had, and the best kicker, and I bet you I soon sent that lot of animals flying to good homes in the country, and I got him a position as policeman, going to His Worship the Mayor me own self an’ tellin’ a straight story to him that I said is the father of the city.’

“Susie liked this woman and made a great many direct bows to her which pleased her very much.

“‘God bless the little angel-faced creetur,’ she said. ‘She reminds me of me own mother in glory—well, good-bye to ye, me lady, an’ good luck to the bird. I must hurry home an’ make a toothsome dish for me old man’s dinner, for it’s bound to please him, I am, since he gave up his beasts to please me.’

“When she left, the floor-walker gently urged the other women to pass on and let Mrs. Martin finish her shopping, so she put Sister Susie in the bag she so loved to travel in and went on with her purchases.”

“Some animals have a dreadful time when they travel,” said Billie. “When Missie brought me from New York I heard some cattle talking on the train. One handsome black and white mother cow was saying, ‘My blood runs like poison in my veins, for I have been three days without food or water. If human beings wanted to kill me, why did they not do it away back in Chicago, where I was taken from my baby calf? I pity the human being that eats me! Another bad, black cow said, ‘My tongue is dry and I have lost so much blood by getting bruised and torn in this crowded cattle car that I hope the persons who eat me will die.’”

“If human beings could listen to animals talking,” I said, “they would get some hints.”

“Mrs. Martin understands,” said Billie. “She told me that when our train was standing in the station in Albany the waiter in the dining car brought her two mutton chops. Just as she was going to eat them she looked out the car window, and there out on the platform in a crate were two sheep. Fancy, Dicky-Dick—two sheep from a western plain in a case half boarded up in a rushing railway station. Mrs. Martin says they looked at her with their suffering eyes. They never stirred—just showed their agony by their glances, and she pushed away her plate and said to the waiter, ‘Oh, take it away.’”

“Dear Missie,” said Billie affectionately, “she hates to see anything suffer. She saw a poor old horse fall down here in the street to-day, and she went out and gave the owner money enough to take him to the Rest Home for horses.”

“What is that?” I said curiously. “I have not heard about it.”

“I heard the milkman’s horse talking to the grocer’s horse about it two days ago,” said Billie. “It has just been started, and it is a big farm outside the city. The milkman’s horse said to the other horse, ‘You ought to go out there, Tom. Your hoofs are in bad shape, and that moist land down by the creek on the Rest Farm would set you up again finely. Then you could lie down in the shade of the tall trees, and if you were not able to go out at all they would put you in one of the nice clean barns.”

“Will they take tired dogs and birds out there?” I asked.

“They will take anything,” replied Billie. “Back of the brick farm house is a long, low building which is a dog’s boarding house. Any one going away in summer can put a pet animal there and know that it will have a good time roaming over the farm with the men.”

“Cats have a dreadful time,” I said, “when their owners go away and leave them.”

Billie began to laugh, and I said in surprise, “My friend, have you turned heartless about cats?”

“No, no,” said Billie, “but just listen to what Sammy-Sam is saying, as he walks up and down here under the trees.”

I looked at our handsome little lad, as he paced to and fro, a book by a well-known animal lover in his hand. Missie, before she went out this afternoon, had promised him a quarter if he would learn a nice poem for her before she came home, and this is what he chose, and it fitted in so well with what I had been saying that it had made Billie laugh:

“THE WAIL OF THE CAT”

“My master’s off to seek the wood, My lady’s on the ocean, The cook and butler fled last night, But where, I’ve not a notion. The tutor and the boys have skipped, I don’t know where to find them: But tell me, do they never think Of the cat they’ve left behind them?

“I haven’t any place to sleep, I haven’t any dinner. The milkman never comes my way; I’m growing daily thinner. The butcher and the baker pass, There’s no one to remind them: O tell me, do they never think Of the cat they’ve left behind them?

“The dog next door has hidden bones, They’re buried in the ‘arey’; The parrot’s boarding at the zoo, And so is the canary. The neighbors scatter, free from care, There’s nothing here to bind them: I wonder if they never think Of the cat they’ve left behind them?”