TABBY'S CHICKS.* Tappy's Chicks is altogether too insignificant a title
for so delightful and valuable a little book. We suppose children's books sell best, and that the title will attract these little customers, but it certainly gives no idea of the charming riches of these Scotch tales, or of their graver and higher meaning. We should adopt the second title, and call the book "Links between Nature and Human Nature." It is impossible to close the volume, which has given us some quiet hours of very pure enjoyment, without sincere regret that we are not opening it instead, and without a curious feeling that we have been living in a different world,—in a world in which the relations between animals and men are quite unlike those which usually exist, or rather which do not exist at all, for animals are too much regarded as either things to be killed for food, or locomotive machines, or ornaments, or, at beet, playthings. When the present writer first met his own little Waif, his dignified tom-cat, and his motherly old puss, after reading of Mrs. Cupples' pets, it seemed as if his eyes were opened to their real nature,—as if they themselves looked at him with an expres- sion of happy triumph that at last they were understood and appreciated, as if the mere fact of their dumbness had strangely blinded humanity to the intellect and the heart of their four-footed dependents, as if the days of kicking them out of the way, of locking them up in stables and not saying "how do you do ?" and "good bye !" to them, or making proper arrangements for their happiness and comfort, must soon pass away for ever from the civilized, as indeed it has—not passed away, but never obtained in the uncivilized world, where dogs, and horses, and dumb creatures generally are the companions, and not the mere tools of their owners. Superior people who smile good- naturedly from their height of good-sense on enthusiasts for the animal creation will be inclined to ask us who this Mrs. Cupples is ? Probably, the "Mrs." is a pardonable fiction, they will surmise, invented to give her book more authority, and save it from the disregard that might fall on the lucubrations of an amiable old maid. And, to be honest, there is no evidence that she possesses children, though she certainly has a " gudeman." But is it not rather an argument in favour of the high claims that she makes for her favourites, that they seem so well to fill the place for childless folk that the bairns fill for their more favoured parents ? "More favoured, indeed !" we think we hear some animal-lovers exclaim, "why, parents have not half the comfort out of their children ! Animals are infinitely more affectionate and obedient, and cause a hundred times less expense, trouble and anxiety." Well, we are not prepared to accede to the first part of the state- ment,—so much depends on the training ; nor altogether to the last, for we have known pets who have not been banished from the parlour when troublesome or unwelcome, as children certainly would have been. But this is cavilling, and not to the point.
We wish Mrs. Cupples had given us some idea, either in a pre- face or notes, of the whereabouts of the boundary-line between fact and fiction, which it is often impossible to get at. Much seems to be unvarnished truth, but so much unmistakable fiction —as, for instance, all the details of the poaching expedition of the tailor's and shoemaker's cats—that we should much like to be told what is history and what is due to Mrs. Cupples' lively imagina- tion working upon materials gathered by close observation, but used to add plausibility to her theory of character and motive as identical in human beings and the humbler animals. Not that we are the least inclined to scoff—we are humble and willing disciples, and ready to believe, as Mrs. Cupples has certainly brought herself to do—that our little friends understand what is said to them, and that the sounds they make mean questions and answers, and ex- clamations of gratitude, affection, reproach, or indignation. Once,
Tappis Chicks. By Mrs. George Cripples. London : Strahan and Co. and once only, we note an inclination to doubt her own beloved theory, and we respect the honesty—it must have cost her a sharp struggle—with which she suggests the common-place explana- tion of what happened, while her pen must have lingered over the desire to score it out, and leave to the sentiment of the incident all its touching power to convince our hearts. It is in the story of the Rookery, where the rooks follow the proprietor's fallen fortunes, and poor Mrs. Cupples, with the courage of the righteous, but with tears, we are sure, of bitter mortification, suggests that the noise on the days of auction perhaps drove them away, and that the woods of the late proprietor's new and humbler domain were the nearest to go to. Take courage, good and dear Mrs. Cupples, and put away this morbid aonscien- tiousness in your next edition ; it is clear to our critical and un- biassed mind that the lame rook, Jacky, so kindly tended and cured by the good old man, had planned and carried out the removal of the colony to the woods, that should in future give music as well as shade and shelter to their beloved old friend. The same story— like each of the others, indeed—contains delicious and quite origi- nal sketches of human as well as of what we are accustomed to call animal character, and we will note one or two of them before turn- ing again to the less self-asserting, but more prominent heroes and heroines of our authoress. Here, then, is an illustration of the joy of proprietorship, common alike to the vulgar parvenu and the long- descended laird, to the owner of a county or the lord of a back yard. It reminds us—for the very words are almost the same—of a small boy we once knew who had been recently appointed to his first service, with authority over a pony and a spade, a wicker carriage and a watering-can. He stood where the miniature lawn abutted on the miniature offices, waving his small right band majestically, now towards the shrubbery and now towards the- shed, exclaiming in an undertone of concentrated enthusiasm, con- trolled by a calm dignity," All this belongs to me belongs to me I belongs to me !" But to the parallel. A rich lawyer had bought the Eden-side estate ; a tenant is telling the tale :— " The first night that Mr. Jeffrey had full occupation o' the place he was walking about in the moonlight, looking over everything—taking, so to speak, what he wad ca' an invent-ry o' the place, doon to the very grass and stanes, and says he to himsel' loud out in the hearing o' Jock Tamson, turning round in the fullness o' his heart, 'This house is my house,' and ho geed a wave wi' his right ban'. This lawn is my lawn,' says he. ' These trees are my trees,' pointing up to the fine mild timber that had grown up wi' the Beetons frae auld days lang syne ; and he struts about like a peacock, jestering away. At that moment some the craws begin to caw, caw, an' says the stupid cratur o' a lawyer body, These crows are my crows.' It was Bien', to say the least o't, as if the birds o' the air belanged to onybody but their Maker, and coald be bought and sold wi' the lave."
And here is a little touch of true sentiment. A servant of the out- going family is talking to an old woman who has been at the auction :—
"'Ay, me, Janet ; I've bought the mild bird-cage the man knocked, it down to me for threepence, though I was ready to pay a hale sax- pence for't.' When Janet had further expressed her surprise at such a purchase, and asked Tibbie what she meant to do with it, she said, no' going to do onything ver it ; it's no' an ordinary bird-cage, woman. Did I no' see the mild mistress—that was aforo your time, Janet—stanin” afore that very cage, cheepin' to her yellow canary when she was stickie tho bit 'ample o' loaf-sugar in atween the wires ? Ay, Janet, woman, it- was the last time my eyes ever beheld her ; an' she was the kindest freend I had on earth. And when I saw the bit cage put up, says I to mysel', "I'll has that if it should cost me my last bawbee, for the sake
o' her that's awa'."' We got another glimpse of Tibbie and her precious purchase, standing beside our friend Sandy Dawson, who was
examining it with a critical but kindly eye. Just you bring it yont to the shop, Tibbie,' he said, in what he intended to be a whisper. 'I'll mend the wires for ye ; an' we'll maybe manage to get a canary-bird or a bit untie tae put in't ; for it's rather daft-like to see a cage withoot e. bird in't.' " And here is another old woman mourning over the good old times :— 0 Ay, mom, they talk about the improvement o' the age, a' body's sae- clever, ye ken ; but div ye no see it's knocking out the word "thrift frae the knowledge o' folk a'thegither? In my young days we were- made to gang 'oot and gather the rushes ; I needna say made, for we liket it fine, and we wad come hams as happy as ye like, and peel them, and break them into lengths for the cruise. That's the auld-fashioned. wee oil tempi°, ye ken,—ye'll see them on the pictures o' the wise and' fuilish virgins. Then we made spanks enough to serve a' the winter ; but noo folk will no be content wi' them, but mann hae their boxes o' safety matches. I'm wae for folk whiles, when I see such thriftlessness."'
It is a remarkable fact, which we need not examine too closely, that Mrs. Cupples has such a large circle of humble friends who all share her devotion to animals, and farther, who all endorse her opinions—not merely as to their intelligence, but as to their power- of comprehending the meaning of what is said to them, and even what is said in their hearing, if it be about them—and are as ready as herself in suggesting the line of thought and argument whicIr the pet in qnestion is following. So that the oil fables and fairy- stories seem to be re-written for us in a form far more captivating, since the incidents of natural history, and the thoughts and feel- ings which close observation has a right to deduce from the man- ners and actions of the dumb creatures, are substituted for the per- fectly absurd conversations and performances of the artificial monsters of the fairy-tale and the fable. In no story is this more cleverly done than in the one referred to of the poaching cats. The timidity and yet the pleasureablenees and novelty of independ- ence evinced by Snow, and the mingled contempt and pity of the old delinquent, Tom, who is undermining her morals, are admirable. "Once in her agitation when she had given vent to a very gentle mew,' he had turned upon her quite fiercely, and asked with a very stern ' yow , if she wanted the keeper to find them out." We have not many of the commoner sort of anecdotes of remark- able sagacity. It is the heart and feeling existing in her favourites to which Mrs. Cupples more particularly wishes to draw our atten- tion; but one story combines both, and we must give it. It is such stories as this that we should like to have been assured were true :—
e The winter set in very early that year, and one afternoon Andrew was returning homewards from his usual rounds. He had got safely through the village of Moonzie. About half a mile beyond the Manse, he got out of the cart to help Beauty up a slight incline. This be managed to do with great difficulty, and was in the act of getting into the cart again, when Beauty slipped on the frosty road, and her master's foot being on the wheel he lost his hold and fell. When he tried to rise he discovered his leg was broken at the ankle, and he had to sink back on the frosty road perfectly helpless. Poor Beauty was in a great state of distress, but when she found that her master could not get up, and that after a time he ceased to be able to speak to her, she did the very best thing she could have done in the circumstances, proving that her amount of sense was indeed, as Andrew expressed it, •by-ordinar; They had called at the Manse that night in passing homewards ; and, when the family heard a horse neighing and pawing the gravel outside, the minister went out himself to see what it was. Great was his sur- prise to find Beauty back again, and without her master."
Another instance of pure sagacity is that of the turkey cock who roosted in the apple tree, and kept a profound silence till the young robbers were well in the tree, when—indifferent to the fact that it was night and sleeping time—he rushed at them and put them ignominiously to flight. That autumn the crop was gathered and housed for the first time. One of the most remarkable stories of affection for their kind is that told in Tappy's Chicks of a little cock and hen named Abram and Sara. Abram was lost :—
" Strange though it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that Sara after losing her little companion pined every day more and more, till at last she refused to eat any food whatever. About a fortnight after Abram disappeared she died. 'It's wool kent [known]; said Barbara, with the tears standing in her kind honest gray eyes, • what Sara has died o', mew, an' that's nothing but a broken heart, for she was the brawest young hen in a' the village afore Abram was lost, an' nothing ailed her that I could see."
While of affection for a master, that of the sailor's monkey is the most touching example. His master had gone to sea again :—
" Weel, yes mew,' replied Mrs. Harvey. Yet he hasna forgotten Johnnie a grain. See to this mew.' And the good woman took from a press an old blue jacket, that had evidently seen bard service at sea, and laid it on a chair. No sooner was this done than the monkey, who had been watching her movements for some time, came crawling out of its hiding-place, and whisked itself into the chair. After feeling the coat carefully, with a cry of joy he lifted up a fold, and, crawling under it, lay down with an unmistakable expression of happiness beaming in his twinkling black eyes. Pair fellow,' said Mrs. Harvey, stroking the animal's head cautiously, where's your master? He might hae bidden a wee thing langer wi' his wither, mightna he, Jackie? But he's awa' again Whether he understood what Mrs. Harvey said or not I cannot say, but he sobbed quite audibly, the tears trickling down his cheeks. Every now and then he wiped them off, while Mrs. Harvey kept Raying, Saw ye ever the like o' that, mew? the pair beastie, he's greetin' for my Johnnie.'"
We find a theory, which we have stated in these pages before, on the question of "What's in a name?" supported and substan- tiated by Mrs. Cupples, in the tale of the poachers' Jock, and there is no more graphic or touching passage than the one in which she describes the joyful home-coming of the puppy, unconscious of his own degradation, sunk from the high estate of a thorough-bred terrier to that of a poacher's crop-eared and lop-tailed cur, and the ignominious and crestfallen retreat, when he finds himself despised and rejected by his aristocratic relations. He paused with an expression of delight in his eyes, and a look as much as to
say, 'Won't they be pleased to see me again !" "For a moment he stood up, facing them boldly on three feet, his fore-leg raised, and the paw hooked inquiringly. Then he took a long look at his mother and his old home, gave a most pathetic whimper almost approaching to a moan, and turned and fled." The pride of the laird's stag-hound is grandly described ; but Mrs. Cupples knows all her humble friends equally well, from a man to a star- ting, and we have to leave a hundred favourite little bits unquoted. • The pictures are not so good. The man and dog in the one on page 111 are absurdly out of perspective ; the latter is looking straight before him at a cat, at least a quarter-of-a-mile behind him ; and the dog's head—squeezed under the planking— in page 115, looks more like a bit of some fabulous reptile. Nevertheless, the frontispiece, some of those in the story of the tailor's cat, and others, are very good, and children will find them, we do not doubt, a great addition to the charm of the book.
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