e very smartly dressed. A few, like Miss
Katharine and her sister, were more plainly attired; but all were
lively and full of girlish fun and seemed to enjoy being together. My
cage hung in view of every one, and I was proud to be selected as an
object-lesson by the lame hostess in her introductory appeal to her
guests to help save the birds. She so presented the facts that before
the evening was over she had roused an enthusiasm in some of them
almost equal to her own, and several pledges were given not to wear
birds again.
"There is something new in the way of womanly cruelty which isn't so
well known as the destruction of the birds," remarked one of the
company. "The humane society ought to get after the women who wear
baby lamb trimming."
"The way sealskins are procured is also very cruel," said another girl.
"I have never read much about it," answered Eliza, "but it surely
cannot be so wicked as killing song birds, because the sealskin is an
article of clothing which serves to keep the body warm, while a dead
bird sewed on your hat is merely for show and doesn't keep you warm or
cool or anything else."
"It is not the use that is made of the sealskin that is wrong, but the
cruelty of the hunters in getting it," replied the young lady who had
first spoken. "They say when the parent seal is captured the young one
cries for it exactly as a human baby cries after its mother. It is
most pitiful to hear it wail. The branding of the poor creatures is a
most brutal thing."
"Why are they branded?" asked Kathy.
"Well, you know, for some years there has been a great strife between
the United States and Canada, principally over the seal fisheries.
Each was afraid the other would get more than its share. To put a stop
to the seals being entirely killed off, as was likely to be the case
since so many poachers were in the business, one of our government
agents suggested that the seals should be branded. They drive them
into pens and burn them with red-hot irons."
"It isn't likely that any of us will be called upon to deny ourselves
the wearing of baby lamb, as it is quite expensive, but we can condemn
it by word if not by example," observed Kathy.
The good-nights were said and the company dispersed, not so jolly and
noisy as they came, but with thoughtfulness arising from awakened
consciences. The humble lame girl had sowed the good seed.
Polly was to come back from her grandmother's the next week and
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