The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1909-06-26
The Bird Catcher.

people in this country follow the trade,
but their ambition never scars any
higher than the sparrows, and hard
life such must have if what a dear
friend told me about on yesterday is
correct
There are these darned sparrows," he
angirly remarked, destroying my grass
plot" and, rushing for his gun, he found
when he had returned the sparrows
gone. Laying down the air gun on the
table, he sot brOodiIig philosophically
for a time 1t was on the cuteness of
sparrows, for these words of his settled
it:
Look here, on yesterday / put some
strychnine on bread crumbs and placed
these crumbs outside there for the SPAR
rows to eat. and would you believe it,
they never touched bit of it,
Yes, / would 1 answered, for I'd
believe anything about sparrows only
this. that you'd never make a fortune
catching them. You may shoot an odd
one by accident now and again, but
otherwise you are only losing your time
unless you would try this means"
What means?" and he leaned anX-
iously forward as he put the question.
You sing like them; why not endeav-
or to captivate them by your song?"
Get" and reaching for a hook to
fling at me, made good my escape
while he fashioned up in his mind
horror chamber for sparrows.
A bird catcher, as 1 have stated, was
a profession in Ireland in my young
days, and Jack Scally stood at the top
most rung of it. A small, ,wizened man
Jack was, with d cast in his left eye
and with only one arm, the other he
lost while a young boy, having caught
it i'm a piece of machinery. / suppose
it was the loss of his arm that forced
Jack to take UP the profession of bird
catcher Anyway. he made a good liv-
ing by means of it, He always seemed
to be as happy as a lark, and as he
made his way to the haunts of the birds
with his paraphernalia tied on his back
singing snatches of songs as he went,
you felt inclined to envy him his open
life with the trees and streams, the
green fields and the mountains around
him. When Jack arrived at a likely
place for birds, he laid his parapher-
MALTA aside and sat down and then oid
Rube the hunter never scanned the
prairies with such a searching eye as
Jack scanned the fields and heavens. He
never thought of setting his nets and
birdline sticks until he was sure of
he jumped to his feet and unrolling his
nets, he set them on the ground, al
ways careful of placing a decoy bird in
the center of them. Having completed
these arrangements. he withdrew to
some shelter close by, and there crouch
ing down, he would remain often for
hours in the same attitude, no matter
what kind the weather was. When he
saw a flock of birds, especially plover
lowering a distance away, he would give
vent to a peculiar whistle an exact i'm
itation, and the birds attracted by the
sound, would soar over the nets, and
seeing the decoy calmly resting on
nice greenSward. they would swoop
down to the ground only to get entan-
gled in the nets, and often .Kck would
capture as many as fifty birds in one
haul. l have often seen Jack spend
whole days in the depth of winter down
in the marshy lands in the shade of a
FIR, and how ne was not frozen with the
cold passes my comprehension. The
doctor and Father Denis, the curate,
were good customers of Jacks. When
ever they went shooting and met with
no success, Jack would make it a point
to be somewhere on their way home,
and then such a conversation as this
would ensue:
'Begad, yer riverince, yerself an the
doctor had a bad day"
Yes, Jack, unfortunately we came
upon no BIRDS
It's too cowld. yer riverince. for thin
TO be sirrin', but, anyway, I'm sorry
yer goin' home Imply handed. an
know, Father Tom, God bless him. will
be disappointed at yer goin' home wud
wan hand as long as the other"
How do you know that, Jack?"
He tOwld me the last time l was
talkin' to him. He was complimintin'
me on me ganius for ketchin' birds. an
he SEE to me, we're as good, Jack. wud
the nets as me curate is wud the gun;
he's the best shot in the country, an
niver a day that he goes out bud he
brings in half a dozen or so ov birds.
an the doctor the same so yez must
live UP to yer reputashun.''
You are a great rogue, Jack"
'Troth I'm anything bud that, yer
rtverince, an I'm only now anxious for
yer reputashun, an becase 1 am have
half dozen ov good bros tied up for
eoch of yeh. Father Tom will never
know but that yez shot thin. an sooner
than have yez go home Imply handed.
I'm willin' to give thin for nothin'."
There, by the Great Frederic" there
and the doctor throws Jack twice the
value of the birds. only I'm giving a
dinner on Thursday and my guests like
VARIETY would not take them. a
shooting man. Scally. you know never
likes SHARED birds"
OH l know yer honor is born
sportsman, an l wudn't press me birds
on yeh, only wudn't like to have the
people say that yez cudn't hit a hay
cock, an saying it they'd be. iv 1 let
yez go home Imply handed"
Many purchase the good dear doc
tor made from Jack. and well he paid
the latter for it. Jack knew the doc
tors weakness to nicely, and after
the doctors long shooting trips Jack
would plant himself somewhere in the
doctors way home and dispose of his
birds at double the market price. Jack
lived alone in a little cottage on the
boreen below the tailor's house He
cared not for company, and at night he
never left his own home
Il don't want any company. he
would say, for in the daytime / have
me birds, an in the night l have me
pinny readings
Many an evening have stolen down
to Jacks house after my supper. and.
in, I found Jack seated on a
stool reading T. D. Sullivan's works
by the light of a candle, which was
placed on the hob. He needed not my
only pointed with his finger
10 another stool and continued reading. |
When he had the poem OF story read. |
he would look at me over his specta- |
cles, and then fixing them more firmly |
On his nose he would say:
Listen to this, aVic machree for It's