Loafing on the Library Steps

A Capital Place for an Eavesdropper, as You Can Prove Any Fine Day

By Dan

Pigeon: Any one of the widely distributed family Columbidae; a heavy-set bird with rather short legs and a bill horny at the tip, but with a soft cere at the base. The plumage is ample and compact, often iridescent in color, but handsome. They feed mainly on fruit, seeds, etc. Most of them fly swiftly and have a cooing voice. — Webster.

But if you are not satisfied with Webster, idle about a bit on the library steps and Boswellize stray thoughts. It’s a capital place to loaf — that long, paved terrace, aloof from the blatter and squawk of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street. There lie Potter’s lions in lithic contempt of trotting humans. Forefronting the assured chastity of the deep portico, those two gigantic urns curve to contours that bring balm to the inner eye. From the capitals and ledges above comes the hundredfold cooing of pigeons, and the air whispers in wide circles with the beat of their wings. A hundred wingless sons and daughters of the Lord scrape past and see neither lions nor steps, neither urns nor portico, nor pigeons. Praise Allah for these virtuous ones, children of affairs who make the world turn round, straining to the click of a stock ticker or the tick of a telegraph.

And when a thousand bipeds have passed we have ten wretches and beggars. Villainous lot. Will you eavesdrop?

Querulous gentleman from Mississippi: “They ought to shoot those damn birds. Look how they soil that statue; what’s the name of it? B-e-a. . . . Can’t make it out. Haven’t got my right glasses. But isn’t it a sight now, I ask you. Course I’m only a small-town man, but I’ve travelled some, sir, and I want to tell you New York is the dirtiest . . .”

Middle-aged school teacher: “Columba, columbae, columbae, columbam, columba. That is correct; Timothy, first declension. That’s how the land of the fourteen-inch gun gets its name. Columbia, the land of the dove — do you see? You say the eagle is the national emblem? Well . . .”

Ginger-topped boy: “Gee, wish I had my thousandshootinairgun here.”

Poet from west of the moon: “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!”

Ancient little lady in black bonnet and cape: (She carries a cane on her arm. Her hands and feet are gnarled with rheumatism. She walks but ill at best. The spirit is grievously clogged by its material tegument, as Boswell said of his adored, but it shines out none the less from the eager face that shows the experiencing of great things. The lamp is in the dwelling.) “Won’t you feed them, please? I’m going away for the rest of the summer and I hate to think of it. I don’t know who’ll look after them while I’m gone, except Professor Tesla. [She keeps throwing hempseed to the gobbling flock on the grass.] He loves pigeons. Aren’t they hungry, though? And the poor little sparrows, I love them most of all. Just think, people used to kill them and say they did harm. And they do the most good you can imagine, killing bugs and worms and insects. The Audubon Society will tell you all about it. And the same with crows. Just to think the farmers used to shoot the best friends they had. But I don’t know what will happen to my birds when I’m gone.

“What do I feed them? Almost anything. Cracked hempseed, only a few cents a pound. Bread crumbled up. But they oughtn’t to have salty food. Now Professor Tesla thinks . . . [It becomes evident that our little old lady and Professor Tesla had a difference.]

“How many? Why there was only a handful early in the summer, and now Professor Tesla has counted a hundred and twenty-five. Last winter a boy came and told me there were two pigeons half frozen here. Sure enough, I found them. So I telephoned the bird man at Central Park and asked him if he’d take care of two pigeons if I brought them up. They have such a nice dovecote there. And when he said yes I got right into a taxicab and took them there myself.

“Then not long ago one of the little bootblacks here came to me with a dead pigeon; a cat had killed it. Of course, I couldn’t bury it in daytime, with everybody looking, so at about 9, when it was dark, I scooped out a place under those bushes there and covered it over. No, I had nothing but my hands, and they’re so bad with rheumatism. And then one of the poor sparrows. I don’t know what killed it. [She pauses pensively.]

“But I buried it, too, at night, beside the pigeon. You see, I have my private burying ground there. And not a soul knows where it is. Oh, if I could be anything besides a human being I think I’d be a bird. Not a pigeon, but a little sparrow. A man told me once that was silly, because they have no responsibilities or purpose, but that isn’t so. When you think about it, you’ll see they have just as much responsibility and purpose in their way as we have. Don’t you think so? [She asks anxiously into your face, like an eager child.]

“Oh, every one ought to love birds. I used to have a parrot. One winter, when I was going to Italy, I . . .”

. . . first, and I did, cage and all. Oh, there’s Professor Tesla coming now.” (The traffic tower bell rings 8 o’clock and a tall, dignified gentleman in a cutaway coat approaches.)

Professor Nikola Tesla, electrical wizard, inventor and discoverer, and lover of pigeons: (But on second thought we won’t tell you what he said. If you’re really curious, go to the library terrace at just 8 sharp and you’ll see a tall, dignified gentleman in a cutaway coat preparing to feed his burnished brood.)

“But,” says the querulous gentleman from Mississippi, “maybe your eyes are better than mine. Can you read that inscription engraved just over that statue those birds have defaced so shamefully?”

“Yes,” says the school teacher, and reads: “‘Beauty old, yet ever new, eternal voice and inward word.’ Why, that can’t be right. It’s not grammatical. The verb is missing.”

“Indeed,” says the gentleman from Mississippi, “New York is the most careless . . .”