The Owl In The Ivy Bush

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Title:     The Owl In The Ivy Bush
Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing [More Titles by Ewing]

THE OWL IN THE IVY BUSH.

OR, THE CHILDREN'S BIRD OF WISDOM.

INTRODUCTION.

"Hoot toots, man, yon's a queer bird!"

--_Bonnie Scotland._

I am an Owl; a very fluffy one, in spite of all that that Bad Boy pulled out! I live in an Ivy Bush. Children are nothing to me, naturally, so it seems strange that I should begin, at my time of life, to observe their little ways and their humors, and to give them good advice.

And yet it is so. I am the Friend of Young People. In my flight abroad I watch them. As I sit meditating in my Ivy Bush, it is their little matters which I turn over in my fluffy head. I have established a letter box for their communications at the Hole in the Tree. No other address will find me.

It is well known that I am a Bird of Wisdom. I am also an Observing Bird; and though my young friends may think I see less than I do, because of my blinking, and because I detest that vulgar glare of bright light without which some persons do not seem able to see what goes on around them, I would have children to know that if I can blink on occasion, and am not apt to let every starer read my counsel in my eyes, I am wide awake all the same. I am on the look-out when it's so dark that other folk can't see an inch before their noses, and (a word to the foolish and naughty!) I can see what is doing behind my back. And Wiseacre, Observer, and Wide-awake--I am the Children's Owl.

Before I open my mouth on their little affairs, before even I open my letters (if there are any waiting for me) I will explain how it came about that I am the Children's Owl.

It is all owing to that little girl; the one with the fluffy hair and the wise eyes. As an Observer I have noticed that not only I, but other people, seem to do what she wants, and as a Wiseacre I have reflected upon it as strange, because her temper is as soft and fluffy as her hair (which mine is not), and she always seems ready to give way to others (which is never my case--if I can help it). On the occasion I am about to speak of, I could _not_ help it.

It was last summer that that Bad Boy caught me, and squeezed me into a wicker cage. Little did I think I should ever live to be so poked out, and rummaged, and torn to shreds by such a thing as a boy! I bit him, but he got me into the cage and put a cloth over it. Then he took me to his father, who took me to the front door of the house, where he is coachman and gardener, and asked for Little Miss to come out and see the new pet Tom had caught for her.

"It's a nasty tempered brute, but she's such a one for taming things," said the coachman, whipping off the cloth to show me to the housemaid, and letting in a glare of light that irritated me to frenzy. I flew at the housemaid, and she flew into the house. Then I rolled over and growled and hissed under my beak, and tried to hide my eyes in my feathers.

"Little Miss won't tame me," I muttered.

She did not try long. When she heard of me she came running out, the wind blowing her fluffy hair about her face, and the sun shining on it. Fluffed out by the wind, and changing color in the light and shade, the hair down her back is not entirely unlike the feathers of my own, though less sober perhaps in its tints. Like mine it makes a small head look large, and as she has big wise eyes, I have seen creatures less like an owl than Little Miss. Her voice is not so hoarse as mine. It is clear and soft, as I heard when she spoke:

"Oh, _how_ good of you! And how good of Tom! I do so love owls. I always get Mary to put the silver owl by me at luncheon, though I am not allowed to eat pepper. And I have a brown owl, a china one, sitting on a book for a letter weight. He came from Germany. And Captain Barton gave me an owl pencil-case on my birthday, because I liked hearing about his real owl, but, oh, I never hoped I should have a real owl of my own. It _was_ kind of Tom."

To hear that Bad Boy called kind was too much for endurance, and I let them see how savage I felt. If the wicker work had not been very strong the cage would not have held me.

"He's a tartar," said the coachman.

"Oh, no, Williams!" said Little Miss, "he's only frightened by the light. Give me the cloth, please."

"Take care, Miss. He'll bite you," cried the coachman, as she put the cloth over the cage, and then over her own head.

"No, he won't! I don't mind his snapping and hissing. I want him to see me, and know me. Then perhaps he'll get to like me, and be tame, and sit on the nursery clock and look wise. Captain Barton's owl used to sit on his clock. Poor fellow! Dear old owlie! Don't growl, my owl. Can you hoot, darling? I should like to hear you hoot."

Sometimes as I sit in my ivy bush, and the moon shines on the spiders' webs and reminds me of the threads of her hair, on a mild, sleepy night, if there's nothing stirring but the ivy boughs; sitting, I say, blinking between a dream and a doze, I fancy I see her face close to mine, as it was that day with the wicker work between. Our eyes looking at each other, and our fluffiness mixed up by the wind. Then I try to remember all the kind things she said to me to coax me to leave my ivy bush, and go to live on the nursery clock. But I can't remember half. I was in such a rage at the time, and when you are in a rage you miss a good deal, and forget a good deal.

I know that at last she left off talking to me, and I could see her wise eyes swimming in tears. Then she left me alone under the cloth.

"Well, Miss," said the coachman, "you don't make much of him, do ye? He's a Tartar, Miss, I'm afraid."

"I think, Williams, that he's too old. Captain Barton's owl was a little owlet when he first got him. I shall never tame this one, Williams, and I never was so disappointed in all my life. Captain Barton said he kept an owl to keep himself good and wise, because nobody could be foolish in the face of an owl sitting on his clock. He says both his godfathers are dead, and he has taken his owl for his godfather. These are his jokes, Williams, but I had set my heart on having an owl on the nursery clock. I do think I have never wished so much for anything in the world as that Tom's owl would be our Bird of Wisdom. But he never will. He will never let me tame him. He wants to be a wild owl all his life. I love him very much, and I should like him to have what he wants, and not be miserable. Please thank Tom very much, and please ask him to let him go."

"I'm sorry I brought him, Miss, to trouble you," said the coachman. "But Tom won't let him go. He'd a lot of trouble catching him, and if he's no good to you, Tom'll be glad of him to stuff. He's got some glass eyes out of a stuffed fox the moths ate, and he's bent on stuffing an owl, is Tom. The eyes would be too big for a pheasant, but they'll look well enough in an owl, he thinks."

My hearing is very acute, and not a word of that Bad Boy's brutal intentions was lost on me. I shrunk among my feathers and shivered with despair; but when I heard the voice of Little Miss I rounded my ear once more.

"No, Williams, no! He must not be stuffed. Oh, please beg Tom to come to me. Perhaps I can give him something to persuade him not. If he must stuff an owl, please, please let him stuff a strange owl. One I haven't made friends with. Not this one. He is very wild, but he is very lovely and soft, and I do so want him to be let go."

"Well, Miss, I'll send Tom and you can settle it with him. All I say, he's a Tartar, and stuffing's too good for him."

Whether she bribed Tom, or persuaded him, I don't know, but Little Miss got her way, and that Bad Boy let me go, and I went back to my Ivy Bush.

OWLHOOT I.

"What can't be cured must be endured."

--_Old Proverb._

It was the wish to see Little Miss once more that led my wings past her nursery window; besides, I had a curiosity to look at the clock.

It is an eight-day clock, in a handsome case, and would, undoubtedly, have been a becoming perch for a bird of my dignified appearance, but I will not describe it to-day. Nor will I speak of my meditations as I sit in my Ivy Bush like any other common owl, and reflect that if I had not had my own way, but had listened to Little Miss, I might have sat on an Eight-day Clock, and been godfather to the children. It is not seemly for an owl to doubt his own wisdom, but as I have taken upon me, for the sake of Little Miss, to be a child's counsellor, I will just observe, in passing, that though it is very satisfactory at the time to get your own way, you may live to wish that you had taken other folk's advice instead.

From that nursery I have taken flight to others. I sail by the windows, and throw a searching eye through these bars which are, I believe, placed there to keep top-heavy babies from tumbling out. Sometimes I peer down the chimney. From the nook of a wall or the hollow of a tree, I overlook the children's gardens and playgrounds. I have an eye to several schools, and I fancy (though I may be wrong) that I should look well seated on the top of an easel--just above the black-board, with a piece of chalk in my feathery foot.

Not that I have any notion of playing schoolmaster, or even of advising schoolmasters and parents how to make their children good and wise. I am the Children's Owl--their very own--and all my good advice is intended to help them to improve themselves.

It is wonderful how children _do_ sometimes improve! I knew a fine little fellow, much made of by his family and friends, who used to be so peevish about all the little ups and downs of life, and had such a lamentable whine in his voice when he was thwarted in any trifle, that if you had heard without seeing him, you'd have sworn that the most miserable wretch in the world was bewailing the worst of catastrophes with failing breath. And all the while there was not a handsomer, healthier, better fed, better bred, better dressed, and more dearly loved, little boy in all the parish. When you might have thought, by the sound of it, that some starving skeleton of a creature was moaning for a bit of bread, the young gentleman was only sobbing through the soap and lifting his voice above the towels, because Nurse would wash his fair and rosy cheeks. And when cries like those of one vanquished in battle and begging and praying for his life, rang through the hall and up the front stairs, it proved to be nothing worse than Master Jack imploring his friends to "_please, please_," and "_do, do_," let him stay out to run in a final "go as you please" race with the young Browns (who dine a quarter of an hour later), instead of going in promptly when the gong sounded for luncheon.

Now the other day I peeped into a bedroom of that little boy's home. The sun was up, and so was Jack, but one of his numerous Aunts was not. She was in bed with a headache, and to this her pale face, her eyes shunning the light like my own, and her hair restlessly tossed over the pillow bore witness. When a knock came on the bedroom door, she started with pain, but lay down again and cried--"Come in!"

The door opened, but no one came in; and outside the voices of the little boy and his nurse were audible.

"I want to show her my new coat."

"You can't, Master Jack. Your Aunt's got a dreadful headache, and can't be disturbed."

No peevish complaints from Jack: only a deep sigh.

"I'm very sorry about her headache; and I'm very very sorry about my coat. For I am going out, and it will never be so new again."

His aunt spoke feebly.

"Nurse, I must see his coat. Let him come in."

Enter Jack.

It was his first manly suit, and he was trying hard for a manly soul beneath it, as a brave boy should. He came in very gently, but with conscious pride glowing in his rosy cheeks and out of his shining eyes. His cheeks were very red, for a step in life is a warming thing, and so is a cloth suit when you've been used to frocks.

It was a bottle-green coat, with large mother-o'-pearl buttons and three coachman's capes; and there were leggings to match. The beaver hat, too, was new, and becomingly cocked, as he stood by his Aunt's bedside and smiled.

"What a fine coat, Jack!"

"Made by a tailor, Auntie Julie. Real pockets!"

"You don't say so!"

He nodded.

"Leggings too!" and he stuck up one leg at a sudden right angle on to the bed; a rash proceeding, but the boy has a straight little figure, and with a hop or two he kept his balance.

"My dear Jack, they are grand. How warm they must keep your legs!"

He shook his beaver hat.

"No. They only tickles. That's what they do."

There was a pause. His Aunt remembered the old peevish ways. She did not want to encourage him to discard his winter leggings, and was doubtful what to say. But in a moment more his eyes shone, and his face took that effulgent expression which some children have when they are resolved upon being good.

"--_and as I can't shake off the tickle, I have to bear it_," added the little gentleman.

I call him the little gentleman advisedly. There is no stronger sign of high breeding in young people, than a cheerful endurance of the rubs of life. A temper that fits one's fate, a spirit that rises with the occasion. It is this kind of courage which the Gentlemen of England have shown from time immemorial, through peace and war, by land and sea, in every country and climate of the habitable globe. Jack is a child of that Empire on which the sun never sets, and if he live he is like to have larger opportunities of bearing discomfort than was afforded by the wooly worry of his bottle-green leggings. I am in good hopes that he will not be found wanting.

Some such thoughts, I believe, occurred to his Aunt.

"That's right, Jack. What a man you are!"

The rosy cheeks became carmine, and Jack flung himself upon his Aunt, and kissed her with resounding smacks.

A somewhat wrecked appearance which she presented after this boisterous hug, recalled the headache to his mind, and as he settled the beaver hat, which had gone astray, he said ruefully--

"Is your headache _very_ bad, Auntie Julie!"

"Rather bad, Jack. _And as I can't shake it off, I have to bear it._"

He went away on tiptoe, and it was only after he had carefully and gently closed the bedroom door behind him, that he departed by leaps and bounds to show himself in his bottle-green coat and capes, and white buttons and leggings to match, and beaver hat to boot, first to the young Browns, and after that to the General Public.

As an Observer, I may say that it was a sight worth seeing; and as a Bird of some wisdom, I prophesy well of that boy.

OWLHOOT II.

"Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling."

--_The Raven._

"Taffy was a thief."--_Old Song._

I find the following letters at the Hole in the Tree.

"X LINES, SOUTH CAMP, ALDERSHOT.

"SIR,--You speak with great feeling of that elevated position (I allude, of course, to the top of the eight-day clock), which circumstances led you somewhat hastily to decline. It would undoubtedly have become you, and less cannot be said for such a situation as the summit of an easel, overlooking the black-board, in an establishment for the education of youth. Meanwhile it may interest you to hear of a bird (not of your wisdom, but with parts, and a respectable appearance) who secured a somewhat similar seat in adopting that kind of home which you would not. It was in driving through a wood at some little distance from the above address that we found a wounded crow, and brought him home to our hut. He became a member of the family, and received the name of Slyboots, for reasons with which it is unnecessary to trouble you. He was made very welcome in the drawing-room, but he preferred the kitchen. The kitchen is a brick room detached from the wooden hut. It was once, in fact, an armorer's shop, and has since been converted to a kitchen. The floor is rudely laid, and the bricks gape here and there. A barrack fender guards the fire-place, and a barrack poker reposes in the fender. It is a very ponderous poker of unusual size and the commonest appearance, but with a massive knob at the upper end which was wont to project far and high above the hearth. It was to this seat that Slyboots elevated himself by his own choice, and became the Kitchen Crow. Here he spent hours watching the cook, and taking tit-bits behind her back. He ate what he could (more, I fear, than he ought), and hid the rest in holes and corners. The genial neighborhood of the oven caused him no inconvenience. His glossy coat, being already as black as a coal, was not damaged by a certain grimeyness which is undoubtedly characteristic of the (late) armorer's shop, of which the chimney is an inveterate smoker. Companies of his relatives constantly enter the camp by ways over which the sentries have no control (the Balloon Brigade being not yet even in the clouds); but Slyboots showed no disposition to join them. They flaunt and forage in the Lines, they inspect the ashpits and cookhouses, they wheel and manoeuvre on the parades, but Slyboots sat serene upon his poker. He had a cook-house all to himself.... He died. We must all die; but we need not all die of repletion, which, I fear, was his case. He buried his last meal between two bricks in the kitchen floor, and covered it very tidily with a bit of newspaper. The poker is vacant. Sir, I was bred to the sword and not to the pen, but I have a foolish desire for literary fame. I should be better pleased to be in print than to be promoted--for that matter one seems as near as the other--and my wife agrees with me. She is of a literary turn, and has helped me in the composition of this, but we both fear that the story having no moral you will not admit it into your Owlhoots. But if your wisdom could supply this, or your kindness overlook the defect, it would afford great consolation to a bereaved family to have printed a biography of the dear deceased. For we were greatly attached to him, though he preferred the cook. I can at any rate give you my word as a man of honor that these incidents are true, though, out of soldierly modesty, I will not trouble you with my name, but with much respect subscribe myself by that of

SLYBOOTS."

The gallant officer is too modest. This biography is not only true but brief, and these are rare merits in a memoir. As to the moral--it is not far to seek. Dear children, for whom I hoot! avoid greediness. If Slyboots had eaten tit-bits in moderation, he might be sitting on the poker to this day. I have great pleasure in making his brief career public to the satisfaction of his gallant friend, and I should be glad to hear that the latter had got his step by the same post as his Owlhoot.

The second letter is much farther from literary excellence than the first. I fear this little boy plays truant from school as well as taking apples which do not belong to him. It is high time that he learnt to spell, and also to observe the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_. From not being well grounded on these two points, many boys have lost good situations in life when they grew up to be men.

"deer mister howl,--as you say you see behind your bak i spose its you told varmer jones of me for theres a tree with a whole in it just behind the orchurd he wolloped I shameful and I'll have no more of his apples they be a deal sowerer than yud think though they look so red, but do you call yourself a childerns friend and tell tails i dont i can tell you.

TOM TURNIP."

[PUBLISHER'S NOTE. Mrs. Ewing did not live to complete "The Owl in the Ivy Bush." This, and "Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks" were first published after her death.]

[The end]
Juliana Horatia Ewing's short story: The Owl In The Ivy Bush

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