BLACK BANDIT

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 227, 25 September 1935, Page 20

BLACK BANDIT

(Concluded.) For some time we had been trying to teach him to talk. He had learned to imitate the whine of Rags, the furry little mongrel that I had picked up one summer as it crept, half dead of thirst, through the hot streets of New York. Bags always used that whine when he wanted the cook to let him in the house, and Jesse had found it most useful. It was our idea that Jesse should learn to say "nevermore." After that, we would train him to sit on a bust of Athena. Jesse was a very slow learner, but lie was perfectly polite about it, and would sit on the back of a chair listening to me repeating the word. After a while he would get tired and stroll off. That trick of lighting on people's heads was a favourite sport with Jesse. One day a lady with a beautiful new permanent wave stopped to talk to my mother. As she was going to a dance that evening and wanted the wave to look its best,, she had not worn her hat. In the midst of the conversation, Jesse i came zooming around the corner of the house; he had been off that morning with his friends down in the cornfield. He saw the two women and flew over toward them, evidently liking the shiny hair of the "visitor. For a minute he treaded air over our friend and then swooped down for a grand blow. The lady screamed and tried to shake Jesse off, but Jesse hung on with feet and bill. In the excitement his feet got caught in her hair, and the more he threshed about, and the more the lady pulled and screeched, the more tangled he got. Jesse was even more incensed than she—he seemed to regard the whole thing as a plot on her part to catch him. By the time I and the neighbours for a mile about had gathered round, there was nothing to do but cut Jesse

out with a pair of shears. Jesse never forgave the woman for the trick she played upon him —for that matter, she never cared very much ffr Jesse either.

Jesse's worst trait wag his love for shiny objects. After we had had him for a while, when anything was reported missing the answer was usually, "Jesse's got it!" This, by the way, was the only thing our crow ever learned to say. It developed into a game. Whenever he stole anything he would carefully hide it in the ten-acre lot next to us and then, singing gleefully, "Jesse's got it!" he would ogle us until someone went out to look for it. As you never knew whether it was a bit of silver paper or a diamond necklace, the game was quite exciting. Jesse came along, and when you were "cold," he would caw triumphantly, and if you were "warm," he would keep still and look anxious. One beautiful, but very hot day in August my sister gave a tea. While the tables were being set under the trees and the chairs brought out and arranged about the garden, I went about caging up my animals. The skunks were all called in and put in their run. The porcupines were sent up a tall tree out of the way, and the raccoon and opossums were caged up. As for Jesse, I never thought of him. The tea was a great success in spite of the heat. Our cousin from New York, bursting with pride, had brought a real live English baronet and his lady who were touring the States. "Everyone crowded about them and tried to make a very good impression. An hour or so later one of the baby raccoons strolled over and joined the party. Quite a crowd formed about him, and after ho had shown off and received a couple of cookies, I carried him to his family. It was while I was gone that the thing happened.

It seems that the English lady had left her beautiful turquoise bracelet on the tea tray. While several young ladies were admiring it she had gone to another table for a moment. Later the girls had gone off to see the baby raccoon. During all this time Jesse must have been sitting up in a tree watching it, for suddenly ho dived over the table with one of his beautiful long swoops and without alighting picked up the bracelet. It must have been too heavy for him, because as he flew over the lawn he dropped it and had to alight in order to recover it. Then he was off for the ten-acre lot. It is hardly necessary to say that we did not acknowledge knowing Jesse. After a two-hour search in the boiling sun, during which dresses were torn, shoes muddied and everyone soaked with perspiration, the bracelet was at last located under a bush. We slowly returned to the front porch to find Jesse, fit as a fiddle, on the doorstop. While everyone watched, he whined, the maid opened the door, and through the French windows we could see him strut into the livliig room, switch ou the radio, take a cracker out of his wall case, and prepare to make himself very much. at Lome,. I am afraid that one of my friends expressed ,the opinion of the group when he said, "Well, I've been wondering how you can afford to feed all those animals, but I know now. Tlicy probably support you." After that, my long-suffering family said that Jesse would have to go, and go he did, but it was of his own free will and not until he had amply made up for the trouble he had caused. One hot night while I lay awake wondering if a cold shower would help matters, I heard the ghostly sound of an owl's hoot. Jumping out of bed, I seized a flashlight and hurried downstairs. As I opened the screen door I heard the sound again—mournful, but shot through with a ccrtain menace that marked it as the hunting cry of a bird of prey. That summer our guinea pigs and rabbits had multiplied so rapidly that I had to make extra runs for them without the usual wire coverings. It was for those animals that I was afraid, and with reason, for as I watched I saw a shadow detach itself from the black mass of the trees and float swiftly and silently toward the pen full of running, squeaking white shapes. Fortunately for the animals, the owl struck the wire side of the enclosure and was thrown back. I turned my flash 011 him and with his weird cry he floated off into the night.

I returned to bed rather worried. Covering the pens would be a long and expensive job. Also, it would not mean complete safety, as the squirrels, chipmunks, pheasants and others of the semi-wild animals would surely bo killed. On the floor of my bedroom I found Jesse. At first I thought that ho was dead, but I soon found that lie was only paralysed with terror. I remembered reading that the owl is the crow's worst enemy, and I wondered how poor Jesse would nuiko out with this new arrival. As usual, Jesse surprised me. In the morning ho was pert and happy again, as if there were no such creatures as owls in the world. He seemed to have business to attend to, and disappeared before breakfast. Later that morning, whilo I was beginning to lay out chicken wire over the runs, I saw a great flock of crows flying silently toward the woods. At the trees they separated and began to fly singly and in pairs, diving into every thicket and looking into every hollow tree. Among them I saw Jesse, now completely recovered from his fright and ready for anything. It was more than an hour later that I heard a tremendous hubbub break out in a distant part of the woods. In a few moments I saw the owl, flying low and surrounded by a circle of crows whose numbers were constantly increasing. The owl, far from being the savage killer of the night, now seemed half-blind and completely helpless, trying only to escape from the crows. Twice lie tried to alight upon a branch, only to bo driven off. For a while his life seemed actually in danger. Then ho gave up and flow off down the valley, followed by a black cloud of crows. I saw Jesse only once again. It was that evening. Ho tapped at the glass while wo were eating dinner, but refused to come in. He sat on a bench and sang, "Jesse's got it! Jesse's got it!" and then flew away. The owl never returned. Jesse evidently felt that he had wiped the slate clean and could leave, owing no one anything. I hope I see him and his band again next spring, but I have little hope of resuming our old relations. Jesse was never a domesticated pet. He was a wild bird and gloried in his freedom. I think, however, that'l know of one way to lure him back, if only for a moment. Send a young lady out on the lawn—a young lady with silk stockings and a brand new permanent wave, and, as a final touch, a ehiny bracelet. If that combination does not bring him back, nothing on earth ever will.