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    What the Blackbird said A story in four chirps
    What the Blackbird said A story in four chirps
    What the Blackbird said A story in four chirps
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    What the Blackbird said A story in four chirps

    By Hannah Jane Locker-Lampson and Randolph Caldecott

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    What the Blackbird said A story in four chirps

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      Book preview

      What the Blackbird said A story in four chirps - Hannah Jane Locker-Lampson

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of What the Blackbird said, by

      Mrs. Frederick Locker and Randolph Caldecott

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: What the Blackbird said

      A story in four chirps

      Author: Mrs. Frederick Locker

      Randolph Caldecott

      Release Date: June 13, 2009 [EBook #29111]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT THE BLACKBIRD SAID ***

      Produced by Katherine Ward, Suzanne Shell and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

      file was produced from images generously made available

      by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

      WHAT THE BLACKBIRD SAID.

      A Story

      IN FOUR CHIRPS.

      by

      MRS. FREDERICK LOCKER.

      ILLUSTRATED BY RANDOLPH CALDECOTT.

      LONDON

      GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS

      BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL

      NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET

      1881

      london:

      R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor,

      bread street hill, e.c.

      to my dear children,

      GODFREY AND DOROTHY,

      THIS LITTLE STORY IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

      BY THEIR MOTHER.

      CONTENTS.

      LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

      CHIRP THE FIRST.

      The winter of 1878 was certainly an unusually dreary one, and so thought a remarkably fine young Blackbird, as he perched one morning on the bare bough of a spreading lime-tree, whose last brown leaf had fallen to the ground some weeks before.

      With the exception of the Scotch firs and other fortunate evergreens, there was nothing to be seen on all sides but leafless branches standing out sharply against the cold, grey sky. The ground was frozen, and entirely covered with snow, for there had been a heavy fall during the night. The way-marks of field and road were obliterated, all was one sheet of dazzling whiteness. Here and there a little mound marked the spot where a flower-bed lay buried, and there was one narrow path where the snow was thickly piled on either side, for it had been partially swept from the centre, which showed traces of the bright brown gravel below.

      The Blackbird was contemplating this landscape in a discontented and unhappy frame of mind. He was, as we have just said, a remarkably fine young bird. His plumage was of a glossy blackness, with which not even a raven’s could vie; his bright eyes looked even brighter as they gleamed from the deep yellow rims which surrounded them, and his bill resembled the polished shaft of an early crocus.

      At the time at which my story begins, this Blackbird was about eight months old, and usually he was not a little vain of his appearance. On this particular morning, however, he did not feel at all so proud of himself, or especially pleased with any one or anything. He had passed the long night in a wood hard by, and had been benumbed with cold.

      He had tucked his head first under one wing, and then under the other, but it had been of no use, the cutting wind had penetrated even his thick warm feathers, and had ruffled them in a way which had sorely discomposed him, in body as well as in mind.

      Then again, all through the night he had been exceedingly put out by little cold wet dabs which kept continually falling on his back. The Blackbird had changed his position––he had done it several times: he had moved from a birch to an elm, and then to a beech-tree. But it was of no avail, the little cold droppings seemed to pursue him wherever he went, and it was not till quite late in the night that he found real shelter, and got a little rest in a thick mantle of ivy which completely covered a wall near the stables.

      What were these cold droppings? He could not imagine. He knew well enough they were not rain; rain always made a sharp pelting noise as it struck against the trees. But there had been no such sound, for, with the exception of the occasional sighing of the wind, the night had been a singularly noiseless one. What then could this cold, soft moisture be?

      The Blackbird could not at all understand it, but as he was well sheltered, and soon got warm in the ivy, he fell asleep and forgot all about it.

      The Blackbird on a small white hillock.

      The next morning, however, when he woke up and peeped forth from his green canopy, he was much astonished by the sight which met his eyes. Everything was white! The green fields were gone, the lawn where he found his worms, the flower-beds where he caught his insects,––all had disappeared, and a broad, white, sparkling covering lay over everything. What was it? what could it mean?

      The Blackbird had no one to explain it all to him, so he thought he would just take a short flight and find out for himself. He stretched his wings and skimmed away over the white ground, and then he thought he would rest for a while on a small white hillock.

      No sooner, however, had his little dusky brown feet touched the surface of the snow, than he found he was gradually sinking down, down into a soft, but very cold white bed. With a shrill cry of alarm he flew up again, and did not stop until he alighted on the bough of the lime-tree where we were first introduced to him. What was it? What wonderful and terrible new thing was this? and where was he to go for his breakfast?

      He was sitting in a very melancholy frame of mind, stretching out first one foot and then the other, when his attention was arrested by a

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