By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, February 28, 1948.
“What’s eating you?” demanded Jimmie Frise.
“Pigeons,” I informed him dully.
“Ah, those beautiful creatures!” cried Jim, enchanted. “Symbols of peace and serenity! From the earliest times, doves and pigeons have been beloved of mankind as the inseparable harbingers of happiness and good fortune.”
I cocked a lack-lustre eye on him.
“Pigeons!” mooned Jimmie. “I used to keep them as a boy. In ancient days, every home that was a home had a dove cote1 or pigeon loft as an integral part of the house structure. The pigeon…”
I interrupted him bluntly.
“How would you like,” I demanded, “to have a bunch of pigeons come every morning, at daybreak, and start yelling outside your window?”
“Yelling!” protested Jim.
“It’s the worst kind of yelling,” I yelled. “It’s subdued yelling. When you’re sound asleep, at the break of day, busy with the loveliest sleep of all – those couple of hours from dawn on – you suddenly become aware, through your dreams, of a horrible and mocking sound. It sounds like demons moaning. It sounds like lost souls, half a mile away, yelling in torment. It sounds like somebody starting to throw up.”
“Oh, what a horrible misrepresentation of the cooing of doves!” cried Jimmie, shocked.
“Jim,” I stated desperately, “for the past 10 days, a gang of rowdy pigeons has adopted my house. Somebody in the neighborhood, I suppose, has got sick of them and driven them off their premises. And they’ve squatted on mine. I won’t have it.”
“You’ll get to love them,” assured Jim.
“To me,” I glared, “those last couple of hours of morning sleep are precious beyond anything else I can possess. By daybreak, I’m really coasting in sleep. I’m deep, dark, down in such a bower of lovely sleep that I… I…”
I took a deep breath and went on:
“Jim, they not only yell and gobble and quack…”
“Not quack!” corrected Jim doggedly.
“They not only emit,” I declared, “the most insidious, penetrating and disturbing sounds with their beaks, but they scratch with their toenails. From the crack of day, they all start waddling restlessly around, back and forth, back and forth, like the feeble-minded creatures they are, just scratching their toenails on the galvanized iron eaves, on the raspy roof shingles. What’s the matter with pigeons? Why don’t they sit down and relax like anybody else?”
“It’s their nature to be active,” submitted Jim.
“Active!” I sneered. “Not only do they keep up this endless mooing and gagging, not only do they keep endlessly scratch-scratch-scratching back and forth on the roof: but every few minutes, they jump up and take a short fly, of about five yards, with a lot of whistling and whooshing of wings, only to settle right down again and start that lunatic toenailing back and forth, back and forth… And a poor guy trying to sleep…!”
“Look: why don’t you get up and shoo them away?” asked Jim kindly.
“I do; and they come right back!” I groaned.
“What are you going to do?” asked Jim – quietly, for he could see I was a desperate man.
“Jim, I’ve done it!” I informed him. “I’ve got a trap made. With slats and chicken wire. I’m going to set it up tonight, on a little shelf sort of place above my window. I can reach it from an attic window. I’m going to bait the trap with dried peas. And when I hear the fool “things in the trap, I pull a string. And bingo! I’ve got the pigeons!”
“And then?” inquired Jim, sternly.
“Well, they’re trespassers,” I asserted. “I could wring their necks. Or I could cart them down to the Market and give them to one of those poultry butchers.”
“Pardon me,” said Jim coldly. “But do you realize that pigeons come under the heading of livestock? How do you know that those pigeons aren’t the prized possession of some pigeon fancier in the neighborhood?”
“Any pigeon fancier,” I retorted, “who can’t feed his birds enough to keep them around home isn’t entitled…”
“Oh, yes he is!” assured Jim. “At this season of the year, the pigeons are beginning to feel the first faint notions of spring. They get restless and explore around. All I want to do is warn you that maybe those pigeons on your house may be racing pigeons, worth hundreds of dollars.”
“Oh, nonsense!” I said.
“I’m telling you!” insisted Jim. “You’ve got to be careful fooling with pigeons. There’s a lot of law involved…”
“Okay!” I announced. “You come with me. You know so much about pigeons. You come and help me trap them. And then, if I keep them a couple of days maybe the owner will come hunting them up. You know how kids will spread the news. If he wants them, he can have them: after hearing an earful from me. Otherwise, if nobody claims them..!”
Jim, shaking his head, got his coat on and we went over to my place. In the yard, I showed him my trap; an arrangement made out of an old box and some slats and bits of chicken wire. It had a simple flap front that fell when pulled by a string.
It was no trick at all to carry it to the attic and put it out on the ornamental shelf above my bedroom window. No trick at all to set the front flap to fall, by a yank of cord from my window below. And just as I said, all the kids in the neighborhood were gathered to watch the installation. Both girls and boys, they clustered from far and wide below while Jim and I worked out the attic window.
“What’re you gonna catch, Mr. Clark?” yelled one of the nosiest little girls of the neighborhood. “Pigeons?”
“No, muskrats,” I replied disagreeably. “Now, run along; beat it!”
Which brought all the more.
“Anybody who owns pigeons around here,” I muttered, “will know about this before tomorrow.”
When the trap was set, I sprinkled a handful of dried peas on its floor.
“Now,” I said, “at the crack of dawn tomorrow…”
“You won’t have to wait until the crack of dawn, interrupted Jimmie.
For like vultures wheeling came a flight of seven pigeons, their wings V-ed, floating and flapping overhead while they came to peer at the new contraption under my roof edge.
“Why, the blame things!” I ejaculated, as we ducked in the attic window. They can even hear the rattle of a few dried peas!”
We hastened down to my bedroom, where, leaning out the window, I reached the dangling cord of the trap and drew it tenderly within.
“They’re very trusting,” said Jim, “when it comes to food. Give them a little time. Let one in the trap. The rest will follow.”
The seven landed on my roof and came and peered, their heads bobbing as if on rubber necks, over the eave trough. True to their character, they anxiously and aimlessly waddled this way and that; bobbing, peering.
“Grrrr!” I growled, my hand trembling on the trap cord. “Listen to their toenails! See what I mean?”
“Those are fine birds,” commented Jim, as we crouched behind the curtains.
Without much delay, the leader of the flock, or its most foolish member – I don’t suppose there is much difference – flipped lightly off the eave trough down into the trap.
One, two, three – the rest followed. And slam fell the front flap. Seven startled, indignant pigeons were flapping frantically inside the box.
Jim and I galloped to the attic, reached down and secured the flap. And the wild yells of kids up and down the block spread the news that Mr. Clark had trapped 100 pigeons.
We lifted the crate in through the window. We carried it down to the back cellar, which is cool yet not cold; the ideal place, in Jim’s opinion, in which to keep the birds prisoner until such time as their owner was located.
We set the trap on an old washtub bench and I turned on the lights. The birds were still flapping and fluttering in bird-brained irresponsibility. The more tenderly we approached them, the more panicked they became.
“They’re so…” sighed Jimmie, “… so gentle, so timid, so childlike. Of all birds.”
As we sat, they quieted; though they kept twisting and turning among themselves. I had never bothered much to look closely at pigeons. They were things seen mostly, you might say, out of the corner of my eye.
“Man,” I said, “look at the colors on that one!”
He was not merely lustrous. He was opalescent. For all the indignity of his situation, he stood with a proud look: his breast high; his eye like a jewel. Over his beak there was a tiny white ruff like a comb.
“Jim,” I claimed, “he’s beautiful.”
“More than that,” amended Jim, “he’s valuable. See that ring on his leg? That’s his registered number, I bet. He’s probably a famous racing pigeon. Maybe worth $200.2“
“Holy smoke!” I muttered, getting around the side to look at some of the others. They were all characters. They were blue and gray and white. They were plump, strong, compact. They ALL had rings on their legs.
“Perhaps,” I suggested, “maybe I ought to release them this once, after a warning…”
We heard the buzz of the doorbell overhead in the kitchen; heard footsteps answering; and then a male voice – a loud male voice.
Then footsteps across the kitchen and the cellar door opening.
“You down there, Dad?”
“Yes.”
“A gentleman to see you.”
And down the stairs came large legs followed by a large bully, if ever I saw one.
He was a stranger to me, though I believe I had occasionally seen him around the corner drug store.
“Ah!” he barked, halting on the bottom step. “My pigeons!”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I retorted promptly, being a great believer in taking the offensive with large men. “These birds have been trespassing on my…”
“Trespassing, eh?” sneered the bully. “Fine. That’s fine! Well, your dog has been trespassing on my verandah. So I’ve got him outside in a crate, too!”
“My dog?” I inquired lightly. “Oh, no. My dog doesn’t trespass on anybody’s verandah. Besides, she’s not a him. She’s a her. And she’s never out of our garden.”
“I think I know your dog when I see it,” declared the big bully. Advancing truculently and seizing the cage full of birds, he lifted it in his arms.
“You can come and see,” he glowered, marching up the cellar steps.
We followed. We went out the drive. In the open trunk of his car was a crate. And in the crate, very dejected, sat Rusty, Jimmie’s Irish water spaniel.
“Why,” cried Jim hotly, “that’s MY dog!”
“I always thought…” protested the bully, “I always took this for HIS dog!”
We hastily lifted Rusty and crate out of the car trunk and the bully set his pigeon crate in its place.
“When the children,” declared the bully, agitatedly, “told me about my pigeons being trapped, why, I just thought…I just… well, you see, this dog is always trespassing around my place…”
He paused, and took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.
“No, by Jove, he doesn’t trespass!” he declared loudly. “He’s as welcome as the flowers in May; and has been for years! Many’s the time I’ve come near to making you a proposition for this dog, Mr. Clark. Many’s the fine visit we’ve had together and many’s the fine walk. I live ’round on the other block…”
“Well, now, Mister… Mister?” I replied.
“Hoogenbeck,” he supplied. “Joe Hoogenbeck.”
“Well, now, Mr. Hoogenbeck,” I said warmly, “about the pigeons. In the last few days, they’ve been coming onto my roof at dawn and waking me…”
“Pigeons,” said Mr. Hoogenbeck, with dignity, “can’t wake you if you’ve got an easy conscience. That’s an old saying.”
“I don’t think,” cut in Jim, hoisting Rusty out of the crate, “they’ll wake Mr. Clark after this.”
So Mr. Hoogenbeck and Jimmie shared Rusty for a few minutes while I went and peeked in at the pigeons.
Editor’s Notes:
- A dove cote is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pigeonholes for the birds to nest. Pigeons and doves were an important food source historically in the Middle East and Europe and were kept for their eggs and dung. ↩︎
- $200 in 1948 would be $2,725 in 2025. ↩︎
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