271

A CASE OF LOVE.

It was not duty that made him do it. It was not even the necessity of caring his daily bread. It was love. No one could think it anything else. No one in the tenement knew anything about his past history. He had only just come from Germany, and he had brought his birds with him. There were eighty of them, all singers. When the sun first got at the cages in the morning there was such a clangor of sweet sounds as aroused every other inmate of the tenement, and so far from soothing their savage breasts, converted them into veritable savages.
But no one doubted that it was a case of love. For Henry Strange cared for nothing but his birds. The neighbors seeing him at the window noticed that he never had even the companionship of a pipe. He never had a book or paper in his hand. He made no friends. He was content. His one passion fed him. Day and night he was satisfied to live there among his birds. to which he devoted his whole life/ That it was not duty that made him care for them was evident from the fact as the birds. while he cleaned their cages, and put the water and seed in the little sroughs. And a person does not sing when he is merely doing his duty. And though the birds represented bread and butter, he parted from them with reluctance, and appeared not to court custom in any way.
He was a wonderful looking little old man. It was difficult to see how so many wrinkles could be got on one human face. The skin bore a resemblance to those engravings which it used to be the delight of artists to turn out, covered with delicate, yet indellible cross lines.
Above his crisp, white curls set a skull cap of faded maroon velvet, which looked as if it had seen constant wear since first those locks lost the brown luster of their earlier days. His eyes were so bright and brown and beadlike that it was difficult to believe he had not taken them from the heads of some of his pets. His voice was a faisetto, broken a little in quality, but shrilly sweet like the tones of his canaries.
This one bare room in which he lived was his only apartment. It was on the ground floor of the tenement, and had originally been built for a little cigar and news stand for the occommodation of the ladies and gentlemen above stairs. But a difference of opinion between Mrs. O'Flarity, who lived in the third story back, and the young man who had kept the cigars, caused the police to interfere. The unfeeling creditors of the young plan had then stepped in. and the consequences were that the store was empty just when Henry Strange landed with his eighty canaries. A tiny stove, an iron cut, with some gray blankets upon it, a cupboard which held his bird feed and the little boxes of gravel for them, and some chairs composed the furnishings. There were no curtains at the windows, but this does not matter. For the birds were not embaressed at being looked at while they made their toilets, and Henry Strange seemed to confine his toilet to taking off his skull cap when he went to bed, and putting it on in the morning.
His birds had the peculiarity of being all of a bright and extraordinary yellow. One day Madam Schillenhoffer, who kept the bread shop near and to whom the old man went for his rolls, ventured to ask him how it was that these birds were so much more beautiful than caged canaries ordinarily were. And it was then that the recluse for the first time broke out loquacity.
He was just going out with his rolls in little paper bag when she asked the question, but he stopped immediately and turned his sharp, little eyes on her: He came back into the counter.
"Mme. Schillenhoffer has noticed that?" he said in his own tongue. "Not many notice. Or they think it is merely because I keep the birds clean. They are mistaken. For fifty years have I raised canaries. All these I have are from the first two birds that my mother gave to me when I left her home. She also was fond of canaries. Ah! those birds sang! Every bird my mother looked at became a good singer. So I used to tell her. But I noticed that they were not beautiful as to plumage. And I see there is a reason. Because nature originally made them very bright on the breast and about the wings. So I set me to thinking of the reason of it. And it came to me how among men and women none cared to be beautiful unless two things were possessed by them. The first of these things is liberty. The second is love. I noticed how the maids and how the young men attired themselves before marriage, and during the honeymoon. And I said this is a law of nature. It is impossible to improve on nature. I said each spring I will let my birds together. They shall take their choice of innies. They shall have love. Madam will see the drift of my philosophy. It is very simple. Every bird and beast and man wants the right of selection. Each individual living thing knows better than anyone else what is necessary to him for his own happiness. This is a very great country because it recognizes that every man has alright to the pursuit of happiness. Once I read that ever in Germany. Then I said I will go thither. I like a country where it is accorded to each man to follow his own happiness to my birds. It is necessary to say to you what hapened. Never did birds sing so marevelously. Madam can imagine for herself. There were conteats of song. It was the males who sang. It was the females who made the selection - contrary to the custom among humans. It is very pretty - the way the birds have. And the females, who love color. take those which have the brightest glow on the breast and the tenderest tint on the back. And I noticed that those who had no white feathers at all on the back and no brown ones on the breast were the most admired. So I plucked the foreign colored feathers from the birds so colored that they might not let favor in the sight of their little lovers, or have those tints there at hatching time. And thus it came that my bords have grown to be all of the yellow, bright as a flower newly washed in rain. Only the females on the wing have bits of brown-not dull of tint, but very bright. In all the world, madam, there are no birds as bright as these, except those back among the scabreezes on the islands whore the birds birds build their own neats, and know nothing about bars. Madame has great intelligence to perceive so much concerning my birds. If it should please madam to visit my room I will show her and her husband my birds.
He walked down the street, Madam Schillenhoffer noticed, with a quicker stop than ever before. He was happy. Some one had appreciated his birds. It was the next Sunday that she accepted the invitation, and went. Until 10 madam said in the shop to give hot bread to the languid neighbors, who, tired out with a week of work in the terrible city, were late in their rising. Then in her new white gown, which swelled her sniple figure to astonishing proportions, she took Karl with her and made her way to the apartments of Henry Strange. Now Karl, alrhough ho was the husband of madam, was several years younger and a number of inches shorter. He had a washed-out appearance such as bakers who cook by steam are apt to have, and whom he appeared without his apron, he wore a lost and baffled expression. Once when he and madam went to Germany to ace their people it had been necessary for him to take soe spricous with him, aud at night when he had retired to his room he but there on for a while, just to provide against homesickness.
Karl was very happy at going out with madam. He noticed how much larger she was then the women they passed as they went along the sreet nd wondered if envy was gnawing at their vitals. And he did not in the least mind when once the wind flirted madam's starched draperies over him, and tangled him up in this voluminous then.
Madam was graciousness itself when they reached Henry Strange's . The old man had evidently made one of his rare toilets, for he had on a clean shirt. and his maroon velvet: cap had been brushed. When he opened the door a canary was sitting exactly on the top of his cap something as the naglet sits on the brow of the American republic when she is carved in stone and stands upon a pedastal. The birds were having their Sunday morning hymn. It was deafening. Madam has to screech her salutation. Karl was speechless. He was used to talking in a whisper. But the keeper of the canories stopped that din. He turned to them and abjured them in passionate and not particularly polite German to stop their infernal chatter. But the birds took no offense at all, and, after a few protesting pipes kept as still as it were night.
"They know very well," said Henry Strange

A CASE OF LOVE.

It was not duty that made him do it. It was not even the necessity of caring his daily bread. It was love. No one could think it anything else. No one in the tenement knew anything about his past history. He had only just come from Germany, and he had brought his birds with him. There were eighty of them, all singers. When the sun first got at the cages in the morning there was such a clangor of sweet sounds as aroused every other inmate of the tenement, and so far from soothing their savage breasts, converted them into veritable savages.
But no one doubted that it was a case of love. For Henry Strange cared for nothing but his birds. The neighbors seeing him at the window noticed that he never had even the companionship of a pipe. He never had a book or paper in his hand. He made no friends. He was content. His one passion fed him. Day and night he was satisfied to live there among his birds. to which he devoted his whole life/ That it was not duty that made him care for them was evident from the fact as the birds. while he cleaned their cages, and put the water and seed in the little sroughs. And a person does not sing when he is merely doing his duty. And though the birds represented bread and butter, he parted from them with reluctance, and appeared not to court custom in any way.
He was a wonderful looking little old man. It was difficult to see how so many wrinkles could be got on one human face. The skin bore a resemblance to those engravings which it used to be the delight of artists to turn out, covered with delicate, yet indellible cross lines.
Above his crisp, white curls set a skull cap of faded maroon velvet, which looked as if it had seen constant wear since first those locks lost the brown luster of their earlier days. His eyes were so bright and brown and beadlike that it was difficult to believe he had not taken them from the heads of some of his pets. His voice was a faisetto, broken a little in quality, but shrilly sweet like the tones of his canaries.
This one bare room in which he lived was his only apartment. It was on the ground floor of the tenement, and had originally been built for a little cigar and news stand for the occommodation of the ladies and gentlemen above stairs. But a difference of opinion between Mrs. O'Flarity, who lived in the third story back, and the young man who had kept the cigars, caused the police to interfere. The unfeeling creditors of the young plan had then stepped in. and the consequences were that the store was empty just when Henry Strange landed with his eighty canaries. A tiny stove, an iron cut, with some gray blankets upon it, a cupboard which held his bird feed and the little boxes of gravel for them, and some chairs composed the furnishings. There were no curtains at the windows, but this does not matter. For the birds were not embaressed at being looked at while they made their toilets, and Henry Strange seemed to confine his toilet to taking off his skull cap when he went to bed, and putting it on in the morning.
His birds had the peculiarity of being all of a bright and extraordinary yellow. One day Madam Schillenhoffer, who kept the bread shop near and to whom the old man went for his rolls, ventured to ask him how it was that these birds were so much more beautiful than caged canaries ordinarily were. And it was then that the recluse for the first time broke out loquacity.
He was just going out with his rolls in little paper bag when she asked the question, but he stopped immediately and turned his sharp, little eyes on her: He came back into the counter.
"Mme. Schillenhoffer has noticed that?" he said in his own tongue. "Not many notice. Or they think it is merely because I keep the birds clean. They are mistaken. For fifty years have I raised canaries. All these I have are from the first two birds that my mother gave to me when I left her home. She also was fond of canaries. Ah! those birds sang! Every bird my mother looked at became a good singer. So I used to tell her. But I noticed that they were not beautiful as to plumage. And I see there is a reason. Because nature originally made them very bright on the breast and about the wings. So I set me to thinking of the reason of it. And it came to me how among men and women none cared to be beautiful unless two things were possessed by them. The first of these things is liberty. The second is love. I noticed how the maids and how the young men attired themselves before marriage, and during the honeymoon. And I said this is a law of nature. It is impossible to improve on nature. I said each spring I will let my birds together. They shall take their choice of innies. They shall have love. Madam will see the drift of my philosophy. It is very simple. Every bird and beast and man wants the right of selection. Each individual living thing knows better than anyone else what is necessary to him for his own happiness. This is a very great country because it recognizes that every man has alright to the pursuit of happiness. Once I read that ever in Germany. Then I said I will go thither. I like a country where it is accorded to each man to follow his own happiness to my birds. It is necessary to say to you what hapened. Never did birds sing so marevelously. Madam can imagine for herself. There were conteats of song. It was the males who sang. It was the females who made the selection - contrary to the custom among humans. It is very pretty - the way the birds have. And the females, who love color. take those which have the brightest glow on the breast and the tenderest tint on the back. And I noticed that those who had no white feathers at all on the back and no brown ones on the breast were the most admired. So I plucked the foreign colored feathers from the birds so colored that they might not let favor in the sight of their little lovers, or have those tints there at hatching time. And thus it came that my bords have grown to be all of the yellow, bright as a flower newly washed in rain. Only the females on the wing have bits of brown-not dull of tint, but very bright. In all the world, madam, there are no birds as bright as these, except those back among the scabreezes on the islands whore the birds birds build their own neats, and know nothing about bars. Madame has great intelligence to perceive so much concerning my birds. If it should please madam to visit my room I will show her and her husband my birds.
He walked down the street, Madam Schillenhoffer noticed, with a quicker stop than ever before. He was happy. Some one had appreciated his birds. It was the next Sunday that she accepted the invitation, and went. Until 10 madam said in the shop to give hot bread to the languid neighbors, who, tired out with a week of work in the terrible city, were late in their rising. Then in her new white gown, which swelled her sniple figure to astonishing proportions, she took Karl with her and made her way to the apartments of Henry Strange. Now Karl, alrhough ho was the husband of madam, was several years younger and a number of inches shorter. He had a washed-out appearance such as bakers who cook by steam are apt to have, and whom he appeared without his apron, he wore a lost and baffled expression. Once when he and madam went to Germany to ace their people it had been necessary for him to take soe spricous with him, aud at night when he had retired to his room he but there on for a while, just to provide against homesickness.
Karl was very happy at going out with madam. He noticed how much larger she was then the women they passed as they went along the sreet nd wondered if envy was gnawing at their vitals. And he did not in the least mind when once the wind flirted madam's starched draperies over him, and tangled him up in this voluminous then.
Madam was graciousness itself when they reached Henry Strange's . The old man had evidently made one of his rare toilets, for he had on a clean shirt. and his maroon velvet: cap had been brushed. When he opened the door a canary was sitting exactly on the top of his cap something as the naglet sits on the brow of the American republic when she is carved in stone and stands upon a pedastal. The birds were having their Sunday morning hymn. It was deaf