“Pierre! Pierre Ricord! Come back or you’ll get no money!”
It would have been a convincing argument had it been heard, but it was not. Pierre had already gone too far in advance. Yet at that moment a sound was borne on the breeze toward Adrian which effectually banished all thought of fatigue or of ill-treatment. A long-drawn, unmistakable cry that once heard no man with the hunter instinct ever forgets. The boy’s heart beat faster.
Well, well, I never! Who’d a’ thought A boy’d grow so quick’s This fellow has! Law sakes alive, The buster’s grown to six!
He was a little baby, and He had such funny tricks! But, oh, dear me! the baby’s gone, And here’s a boy of six!
I’ve seen him lie upon the floor, And lift up howls and kicks; But now he is a gentleman,-- No crying when you’re six!
When grown so large, boys must be tough, Just regular little bricks; No tears for any bumps or hurts, When one is big and six!
All of you know Kingfisher by sight. But have you ever noticed anything peculiar about him--anything different from the other birds? No? Well, if you look again you will see that the feathers on top of his head do not lie smoothly, as is the case with most birds, but stand almost on end in the form of a crest. To say the least, this will seem odd, unless one happens to know the cause.
Kingfisher was always a rather solitary fellow. It is said that he came originally from the South. Whether this is so or not, we cannot say, but we do know that he has no relatives in Birdland. He was not called Kingfisher then; indeed, at that time he had no name at all. When he first made his appearance he was in a very unfortunate plight. No one understood his language, so that he could get no help whatever. And, besides, the birds were a little wary of his big bill. Afterwards, when more was known of his quiet habits, their fear turned to something like contempt, and the newcomer was made the object of no end of ridicule. They never ceased to laugh at his great high collar, for it really looked amiss upon a person having so little care of his appearance otherwise.
All this he took rather meekly, for the simple reason that he did not in the least understand it. In reality, Kingfisher possessed a quick temper, and had he guessed that they were making fun of him it would have gone hard with some of them.