Kindness to Animals by Charlotte Elizabeth (classic books for 10 year olds .txt) 📕

But there is one thing that I am sorry to see many boys doing every spring, and which they cannot defend by any such excuses. I often wonder who was the first to begin such a disgraceful custom, the most cruel, senseless, and babyish piece of folly: I mean what is called bird-nesting. God said to the creatures, "Be fruitful and multiply,"--"let fowl multiply in the earth." At the same time, He gave them a wonderful instinct and skill, such as man's reason cannot imitate. The birds must keep their eggs very warm for a certain number of days, to bring to life the little creatures that are forming within them; and the eggs being so very delicate and brittle, they must also have a soft place to lie in, close enough for the bird's body to cover them all; and be out of reach of rats, and other enemies. So, when the bird is going to lay, she and her mate set to work, and what wonderful work it is! These little creatures, without any hands, or even paws like four-footed animals, to help them, and with only the bits of stick, hay, grass, dead leaves, wool, hairs, and moss, that they can pick up with their bills, presently form a soft, snug, warm, strong apartment, as round as a tea-cup, and exactly of the proper size; placed, too, where it will be little seen, sheltered above from the wet, yet airy enough to keep it fresh and wholesome, and so smooth on the inside that even the delicate naked body of a bird just hatched cannot be made uneasy by a rough point. It costs the parent-birds a great deal of trouble; and if you leave a nest untouched from one year to another, neither disturbing the eggs nor the nestings, you will find it the next spring nicely repaired and new lined, and a new family in it. Oh! I do wish that boys, remembering how, by the goodness of our equal laws, a poor man's house is his castle, would let a poor bird's little nest be its castle too! He is the bravest boy who will defend the weak from the strong; and he is the best boy who loves and is kind to the least of God's creatures for the sake of the glorious Creator.

But perhaps you may say, "Well, I will not spoil the nest; I will only take the eggs." No, pray do not take the eggs. What pleasure in the world can a parcel of little eggs afford you, compared with the delight that the poor harmless mother takes in them as she sits in her warm house, of her own making, listening for the first faint chirp of the tiny creature within? Birds only bring up one family in a year; and if you take from them the eggs that are to produce that one, you rob them of all the happiness for which they took so much trouble. You are not enough of a hen to hatch the eggs, though you may be enough of a goose to try: then think, and be too much of a man to do such a silly, cruel thing. You like, perhaps, to blow the inside out, and string the shells in a row. Oh you thoughtless child! You must certainly be a very little child to take pleasure in such a babyish thing; and you are very, very thoughtless and wrong to do it at the expense of a poor innocent bird which never injured or wished to injure you, though you can rob it of all its delight, to please such a silly fancy. If you want a pretty thing to ornament your room, go and pick up some round, clear pebbles, of different colours, and give one side of them a polish at the grindstone; then get some pieces of brick, and join them together in the shape of an arch, or any thing you fancy, with a little mortar; spread more mortar, thick and rough, over the front, and, while it is wet, stick in your pebbles, with the shining side outmost, with bits of glass, moss, sealing-wax, and any gay thing that comes in your way. I have seen such pretty contrivances, and have said to myself, "The boy who made this is skilful, and may come to be a good builder, or other artisan, some day;" but when I see bird's eggshells hung up, I turn away with a feeling of pain, because I know that somebody must be there, either idle and cruel, or encouraging their children to be so.

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But there is something far worse than this. When the mother bird has made her nest, and sat long days and nights on her eggs, and heard the little ones chirp within, and helped them to break the thin shell, and felt their little warm bodies cuddling themselves among her soft feathers, and seen their yellow beaks open to ask her for the food that it gives such joy to her affectionate heart to put into them; oh, THEN, can you turn all her honest happiness into misery and mourning, and kill those baby-birds with a miserable death, by cold and hunger, if not by other tortures. If ever you have done this, pray to the Lord God to forgive your sin, for Jesus Christ's sake. Do you think He will forgive you? Yes, you say, because he is very merciful. Indeed he is and for that very reason he hates cruelty: but while you look to the Lord's mercy for pardon, you must steadily resolve to offend no more by doing what he hates; else you only mock him.

I do not myself understand how anybody can bear to hurt little birds, they are such endearing creatures; but I have seen it with my own eyes, and am obliged to believe it. Bad example will go a great way. Boys, and men too, will do what they see others do, without stopping to think of the great truth that God sees them too. But, then, good example goes far also; and the person who is careful not to do wrong has the comfort of knowing that he is showing others the right way. While I write this little book, I am praying to the Lord to make it the means of persuading many young readers to be merciful; and that their good example will persuade many more, who may not see the book; and so good will be done, greater than you now think.

I have a cockatoo. A friend brought him from India, and a funny bird he is, but terribly noisy. He soon began to bark like Fid, and to growl like Bronti; to cackle like the hens, and to imitate every loud noise that he heard. We hoped, if he had a good teacher, he would learn to sing, instead of making such a riot, as he whistles uncommonly well after his master. So we went to buy a Canary bird, and you may be sure we bought two; for it is very cruel to shut up a bird alone in a cage. The cockatoo is not in a cage, but on a stand, dancing and chattering all day. We put our canaries into a very large cage, with a good-sized pan of fresh water every day, clean gravel, and plenty of seed. Nothing could be happier, or tamer, than these little things; but one day the hen got at some green paper, which she pecked at through the wires, and the stuff that coloured it killed her at once. We got another directly in her place, and there they are in the sunshine, on a table close by me, splashing the paper on which I write with the water; for they delight to plunge into it, till they are wet in every feather. Nothing is more necessary to animals and birds than plenty of fresh water. My pigeons have a pan of it to wash in, and it wants changing several times a day; and you do not know how much birds in confinement suffer if that is neglected. A glass hung outside, if always kept full, is good to drink out of; but a bath in the cage is the great luxury.

Perhaps you will ask, Has the cockatoo learned to sing? No, I am sorry to say, he is as noisy as ever, and not at all musical. We keep him quiet by giving him sticks to break, and knotted cord to untie; and when he has been good I take him on my lap, and rub his head and wings, which he greatly likes. I never yet saw the animal, down to a little mouse, that would not be fond of those who treated it tenderly; and the pleasure of being loved is so great, that I only wonder how anybody can neglect to win the love of the creatures which were made for man's use and benefit. There is a wonderful deal of happiness among them, showing how, as the Psalm says, the Lord's "tender mercies are over all his works;" and a little kindness makes them so familiar, that we are always reminded how sociable they were with Adam in the garden of Eden; and how happy they and we should all be together now, if sin had not entered into the world to destroy the beauty and blessedness that were upon every thing when God first made them, and saw that they were all "very good."

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A story about Jack. When he was a little fellow, soon after he came to me, and before he knew many words, he made me understand that he wanted a very long, slender stick. I asked a gardener of a friend, and he cut him a fine one from a particular sort of tree. Then Jack laid out a penny, all that he had, on a coarse bit of line, such as fishermen use; and, lastly, he came to me for some large pins: one of which he bent like a hook; explaining to me that he was going to dig for worms to put upon it, that he might fish. I shook my head, saying, "No." Jack nodded his head, and said "Yes." I said "bad;" Jack said "good;" and then I took up his little red hand, and pretended I was going to run the hook through the flesh. He snatched it away in a fright, saying "Bad, bad!" but I nodded, and said "Good, good!" He said, "Bad Mam, hurt Jack!" and I answered, "Bad Jack, hurt worm: God made Jack--God made worm." He shook his head, and said, "No;" and what do you think was the reason he gave? He reminded me that God is high up above, and that the worms come from below, under the ground. The little fellow