That Quail, Robert

by Margaret Stanger

  One such protracted minute involved a young man who makes and sells beautifully carved birds. He got word to me that he was going to some sort of gathering and would like to stop for a few minutes if he could see the quail. I was more than glad to have him come, and immediately thought what a lovely Christmas gift for the Kienzles a MacKenzie quail would be. He came, accompanied by his brother. Robert greeted them at the kitchen door, investigating their shoes as she always did. Both young men stood motionless, almost speechless. I suggested that we go into the other room, and the bird-carver said, “May I look at her a little more?”

  “Oh certainly,” I replied. “She will come with us.”

  They came into the keeping room very cautiously, as though they were afraid they would frighten her away. They told me, after an hour or two, that they were astonished that they could actually see and touch her. They had expected a fleeting glimpse of a little shy wild thing as she ducked under some piece of furniture. We all sat around the table with Robert on it, and I leaned back and listened. I finally had to get them paper and pencil. Those boys knew their bird anatomy. They conversed between themselves about the angle of the lateral this and the dorsal that, examined a feather Robert dropped as though it were a jewel. Once the carver remarked, more to his brother than to me:

  “I’ve carved lots of quails, but I always made a big mistake, I see now. I never realized that there was a distinct dividing line down the breast center. Look at that! She is really double-breasted! And do you see the iridescence on the gray back feathers? They are almost blue in tone. This is wonderful.”

  It turned out that he had used some little dead bodies as models, and also some nicely mounted ones. But this was Life. After they had been with me two hours, one of them looked at his watch and said in amazement, “Do you know what time it is? It is almost five!” and off they dashed, thanking me almost reverently for the afternoon. I wonder what happened to the hostess who had been expecting them those two hours.

  I wish I had kept an actual count, but I feel quite sure that well over 50 per cent of her callers left asking if they could bring So-and-so, who would simply lose her heart—or So-and-so, who was so especially fond of quails, and so on. Of course I always said they might. And they did.

  One very charming group, six strong, made arrangements to come from a neighboring town, bringing two house guests with them. They announced that they believed they were relatives of Robert’s. I was accustomed to having people identify themselves with her by such remarks as, “I think she likes me,” so I took this in my stride. I politely asked the reason for the statement and one woman said, “Well, my mother’s name was Woodcock; my grandmother’s name was Quail, spelled Q-u-a-y-l-e, I believe; and my grandmother’s name was Martin.” I agreed readily that they certainly all belonged to the same family.

  One chance encounter developed into a real friendship. In the local bakery one day I met a friend and showed her a lovely picture of Robert which I had just picked up at the camera shop. A stranger, who I found out later was touring from Illinois, was in the shop asking the way to a charming little church which happens to be on my road. The saleslady asked to see the picture and, as a matter of courtesy, I showed it also to the stranger. Such a response! She asked all sorts of questions and seemed to have lost all interest in the church. I told her that if she followed me I could show her the way to the Church of the Holy Spirit, and asked if she would care to stop at my house and meet Robert. She would indeed. She followed me, and she and her husband got out laden, in true tourist fashion, with cameras.

  Mr. and Mrs. Pope were delightful people and that Christmas I received an attractive card made up of pictures of their travels. Prominently among them was one of Mrs. Pope, looking like a delighted child, with Robert on her shoulder. It developed that Mrs. Pope is a columnist for a large Midwestern newspaper and has adequately taken care of Robert’s publicity in that area of the United States. A letter from her asked for some pictures of my home and said, “I’m writing up the Cape Cod trip as sort of a travel feature, but to tell the truth, all else seems to pale in comparison to Robert and our visit in your home.”

  And so it went. It was a summer rewarding for me in human relationships. I glow when I think of the impact these five ounces of bird life made, and how many lives she enriched, to say nothing of her fame.

  10

  JUST THE TWO OF US

  IT IS OFTEN SAID that you cannot really know a person until you live with him, or travel with him. I am sure this applies to animals as well as to human beings, and I am doubly sure that it is true of quails.

  Much of her charm and many of the enchanting things she did were reserved for times when we were by ourselves. I would expect this to be true, as indeed it was, of her periods of showing affection, getting on my shoulder and rubbing against my neck with little coos of endearment; but I was a little surprised by “the game.” She usually entertained herself well, or busied herself, when I was working. But at times she wanted to be amused. This most often happened over a bit of lettuce. Instead of eating it, she would come running to me, holding the lettuce in her beak. Then, pushing against my ankle with her tail and looking up at me with a real gleam in her eye, she let me know that she wanted. to play “Chase Me.”

  I usually stopped what I was doing and, bending over her, saying, “I’ll get you! I’ll get you,” would start the chase. Off she would run, with me after her, across the kitchen, through the living room, across the hall and through the bedroom back to the kitchen. Round and round we went, sometimes for as long as five minutes. Sometimes I doubled back on her and met her face to face in the hall, at which point she would brake to a stop, pivot in a flash and reverse the path. It was definitely a game; if she had been trying to get away from me, all the had to do was disappear under a table or a bed. The chase continued until she was tired, at which time—gulp-gulp, the lettuce was swallowed and the game was over. If she chose to play while we were at the table, she would run around the surface, in and out of spaces between sugar and cream, around vegetable dishes, but never leaving the table.

  I often wished that visitors might see this. However, I think the reason they did not is plain: Robert wanted to play when she was a bit bored. When guests were there, she was so engrossed with them, or perhaps so satisfied with the attention she was receiving, that nothing else was necessary.

  Once the game resulted in an anguished, sleepless night for me. I had been sewing, putting a binding on a baby bib. I had snipped off a two-inch piece of bias binding, and it was red. As quick as a wink, Robert was off with it, with me after her. I can still see that outstretched head with the banner of red tape flying in the breeze. Whether because the tape was heavier than a bit of lettuce, or for some other reason, the game was abruptly abandoned. Within a minute, to my consternation, she stopped—and with about three bobs of her head she swallowed the tape. This happened after supper, just before her bedtime. I gave her a little less wild rice than usual that night, all the V-8 juice she wanted—and worried. That was really a bad night for me. Tommy was an ocean away, and there was no one I could turn to for professional advice about a quail.

  The next morning I went through the two big droppings with a toothpick—nothing. I watched her carefully that day, telling two callers what had happened. They must have been concerned too—or at least interested, and sorry for me—because shortly after they had left, I received a telephone call from a very elderly lady whom I did not know. She said she had heard about the bias binding, and told me just what could be done. It did not comfort me. She had been brought up on a farm, and said she had often held hens who were suffering from “crop bind.” There was nothing to it. She had watched her mother slit the bulging crop with a razor, remove the obstruction, which might be a bit of fine wire, a pebble or even a packed wad of feathers. Hair balls I had heard of, but not feather balls. She tried to assure me that it did not seem to be painful to the hen, and that after staying in a box for a few hours it was always put
out with the rest of the chickens none the worse for wear.

  My consternation must have been evident, for she went on to tell me: “Now you mustn’t do this yet. Watch her crop and if it gets badly distended, I’d be glad to come up and help you.” Oh yes, the crop was sewed up with common thread. I asked when such distention would be visible, and she said, “Oh, in a week or so.” A week or so! How would I ever get through a week of this worry? She told me to feel the crop about twice a day, and assured me that I would be able to tell.

  Her advice did help by giving me something to do. The only person to remain on an even keel was Robert. As for having me feel her crop, she loved it. She always had enjoyed having her breast stroked, and this presented no problem. Neither did the bias binding. The crop never became distended, life went on as usual, and, as usual Robert (and nature) took care of everything.

  Several weeks later, a visiting ornithologist told me that I need not have worried at all. He said that a bird’s crop can take care of almost anything except stone or metal. I don’t recall that he said anything about hydrochloric acid, but there is something in there that eventually liquefies foreign objects. And whatever it is, it did so in this case, to my immense relief. However, I saw to it that such an occasion did not arise again.

  She gave me so much to remember. One day I started to make a pie, and had just floured the Formica counter top liberally when the telephone rang. As I talked I was aware of Robert’s having found something interesting, as I could hear excited little chirps. She had. She had discovered the flour, and she must have liked the feel of it on her feet—though how she could feel anything through that finely armor-plated foot is beyond me. Such a pattern of quail tracks! By the time I got to her, she had gone on to bigger and better fun: a shallow bowl in which were two cups of sifted flour. In she hopped, and it must have felt like a soft bath to her. Flour flew all over everything, including me, when I grabbed her. I wiped her off with several pieces of Kleenex and started over again with my pie.

  Only once did I see her do anything which I thought was done from temper. Not real temper, perhaps, but Robert had certainly been provoked. This time, there was someone with me, who, by the way, did not see any funny side to it at all. It was the mother of a little boy: I had been going over his schoolwork with him, and on this particular day the mother had come by herself to discuss the results. She had brought all his school reports, as I had asked her to, and these were spread out on the table in sequence. Robert was on the table as usual, and two or three times I had gently pushed her away from the papers, explaining to her that those were not for her. She retired to the edge of the table and stood there looking at us. In less time than it takes to write it, I saw her walk up to her glass of V-8, turn her back to us and calculatingly grasp the edge of the glass with her claw and tip the whole thing over the reports.

  The woman yelled, “Oh, you bad bird! Look. what you’ve done!” I flew into action, getting things cleaned off and mopped up, and Robert, who had never had a cross word said to her in her life, disappeared. When the interview was over, I escorted the mother to the kitchen door and, peeking in the front bedroom, saw Robert up on the Bible, sulking. She was the picture of a sulk, with feathers hunched up and head down. As soon as she saw the stranger’s car pass the window, out she came, as gay as a cricket. All was forgiven. But that time I had to wash the blanket on the Bible, for she left very tangible evidence of having been upset to quite a degree.

  While on this subject I want to record that never once, in the three months she was with me, did she ever make a mistake on a shoulder or in anyone’s arms. Luck? I don’t think so, I think Robert just knew.

  Two institutions profited greatly by her visit. One was the Eastman Kodak Company, which must have been able to declare an extra dividend that fall. Robert was such 3 cooperative subject and the patio such an ideal spot for photography that many people became shutter-happy over her. I watched one woman use up three entire packs of Polaroid film in less than an hour.

  The other profit went to the overseas air-mail people. As well as I thought I knew Robert before she came, as well as I thought I was equipped with knowledge of just how to care for her, many things came up demanding a letter to her family, and an immediate answer. For instance, was it all right for her to have cantaloupe seeds? She was avid for them when she first saw them, and I was afraid they were too large for her to handle. Back came an answer saying that it was perfectly safe. I think if Mildred and Tommy had not been such gentle, courteous people they would often have written, “How many times do we have to tell you that Robert knows what is good for her?”

  Their first letter to me, mailed on their arrival in London, was just what would be expected. How was she? Was I having any trouble? Was she eating well? They had thought of her almost constantly while on the ship. Another air-mail letter came the next day, after they had received my letter awaiting them at the hotel in London. Such relief. After that, they relaxed and enjoyed the trip. They must have been amused at some of my many minor concerns, but they always answered immediately and reassuringly.

  I found myself getting a bit anxious by the time their return was only a week or two away. Everything had gone so well, it was so nearly over, that I asked nothing in the world but to be able to hand Robert over in a state of good health and happiness.

  At last the day came, and what a reunion! I am sure she knew them, and she left no doubt whatever that she knew her own home when she was put down on the familiar davenport. At first she just looked around, then she hopped to the floor and made her tour of inspection. All was well.

  She took up life and living there exactly as she had left off three months previously—with one exception. She would not take any V-8. Water and orange juice presented no problems, but V-8, which had been almost a staple, and so good for her, she would have nothing to do with. One day when I was over there, and watched her turn away from it when it was offered to her, an idea struck me. I immediately drove back to my house to fetch the little squat glass in which I had always put her V-8. We set it on the floor and tapped for Robert. She spied that amber glass and ran to it as fast as she could, and drank and drank and drank. From that day it always had to be in that glass.

  I had sent the balls of mohair yarn home with her, to replace the red velvet hat she had rejected forever, and she continued to use them as her bed. The garden shoes once more became her place of refuge when she was alone, and all else was as it had been.

  She did not visit me again until the following Thanksgiving, just about a year after she had left me. There was not a minute of readjustment, and from then on she had two homes and knew it. She needed a second home occasionally after the grandchildren acquired both a puppy and a cat. She always seemed to enjoy those visits. After all, a change of scene now and then is acceptable to all of us, so why not to Robert? It always makes home seem sweeter on return to it.

  11

  NBC TELEVISION

  I OFTEN RECALL a statement made by a little nine-year-old girl who came with a group of so-called “Fresh Air children” from one of New York City’s most underprivileged districts to spend the summer at a home on the beach. The little girl adjusted beautifully to the children in the home, and the other children in the summer colony loved her. She became one of the crowd. It was an ideal summer for her, for she learned to swim, she learned to help on a sailboat, and she was overjoyed to spend a night on a sleep-out on the beach. At the end of her two-month stay, someone asked her what she thought had been the most exciting part of the summer. Without a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Oh, the telephone!” “But why the telephone?” “Oh,” she said with her eyes glowing, “when it rings, you—well, you just never know!”

  My telephone rang one morning in late February, 1964, and I certainly “never knew.” The voice was that of a program arranger from NBC in New York. How he happened to get my name, I’ll never know—perhaps from an article in our local paper. After a few questions about Robert (Was she reall
y all they had heard?) there came the bombshell question: Could I bring her down to New York to be on television? I was so thunderstruck at the idea that I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind:

  “Oh, I would have to talk with her parents. I couldn’t give an answer right off.”

  The voice at the other end burst out laughing, at the word “parents,” I guess, and suggested that I talk it over with them and call him back the next morning.

  I went over to the Kienzles immediately and dropped the bomb there. Our first reaction was to do it. Of course, it meant that Mildred would have to go with me, as Robert would have to have someone with her in the hotel. We did not worry about her traveling to New York, but if she were left in a hotel room and a chambermaid came in, she would be so delighted to see a companion that—well, anything might happen. But we still thought it might be managed. Then sober second thoughts set in. How would a little quail, accustomed to clear, clean Cape Cod air, react to the soot and general pollution of city air? Would a change of water upset her? Word of our dilemma got around and we had a great deal of advice. Finally, someone experienced in television work gave a most emphatic “no” to it all. She came up with a reason which none of us had thought of. She told us that the heat from the television lights was so intense that it would be extremely dangerous to subject Robert to it. That ended all discussion.

  The next day I telephoned NBC and told them the decision. Then they asked if I had or could get some good professional photographs of her and come down myself to be on the “Missing Links” program. I said I was certain I could, and in a few days another call set the date. John Schram came up from the camera shop and spent about an hour with Robert. He worked quietly and so patiently, following her about, snapping promising shots. At last she stood by a low Delft blue bowl in which were a few sprays of silvery-gray petrified twigs. “There,” he said, “that’s the one,” and it was. When we saw the results, about ten beautiful pictures blown up very large, we could hardly choose the four we liked best. The one with the blue bowl was the masterpiece.