This Was The Bird Called "Goldfinch" By The English Resident In La
Plata, And To The Spanish It Is Also Goldfinch; It Is, However, A
Siskin, _Chrysomitris Magellanica,_ And Has A Velvet-Black Head, The
Rest Of Its Plumage Being Black, Green, And Shining Yellow.
It was
one of my best-loved birds, but I had never had one in my hand, dead
or
Alive, before, and now its wonderful unimagined loveliness, its
graceful form, and the exquisitely pure flower-like yellow hue
affected me with a delight so keen that I could hardly keep from
tears.
After gloating a few moments over it, touching it with my finger-tips
and opening the little black and gold wings, I looked up pleadingly
and begged him to let me keep it. He smiled and shook his head: he
would not waste his breath talking; all his energy was to be spent in
hurling pebbles at other lovely little birds.
"Oh, senor, will you not give it to me?" I pleaded still; and then,
with sudden hope, "Are you going to sell it?"
He laughed, and taking it from my hand put it back in his waistcoat
pocket; then, with a pleasant smile and a nod to say that the
interview was now over, he went on his way.
Standing on the spot where he left me, and still bitterly regretting
that I had failed to get the bird, I watched him until he disappeared
from sight in the distance, walking towards the suburb of Palermo; and
a mystery he remains to this day, the one and only Argentine
gentleman, a citizen of the Athens of South America, amusing himself
by killing little birds with pebbles. But I do not know that it was an
amusement. He had perhaps in some wild moment made a vow to kill so
many siskins in that way, or a bet to prove his skill in throwing a
pebble; or he might have been practising a cure for some mysterious
deadly malady, prescribed by some wandering physician from Bagdad or
Ispaham; or, more probable still, some heartless, soulless woman he
was in love with had imposed this fantastical task on him.
Perhaps the most wonderful thing I saw during that first eventful
visit to the capital was the famed Don Eusebio, the court jester or
fool of the President or Dictator Rosas, the "Nero of South America,"
who lived in his palace at Palermo, just outside the city. I had been
sent with my sisters and little brother to spend the day at the house
of an Anglo-Argentine family in another part of the town, and we were
in the large courtyard playing with the children of the house when
some one opened a window above us and called out, "Don Eusebio!" That
conveyed nothing to me, but the little boys of the house knew what it
meant; it meant that if we went quickly out to the street we might
catch a glimpse of the great man in all his glory.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 60 of 186
Words from 31950 to 32456
of 98444