BYE BYE BIRDY
                   by Eugene Hutchinson Mallory 2


     Brodhead, Wisconsin, was and is a small and quiet town in
the southwestern quarter of Wisconsin. This land has a history
nevertheless. The Indians, who came to this land when the
glaciers left, made the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers one of
their greatest travel and trade routes.

     The insight of the Indians led them to see the magical
beauty of this land from the Dells of the Wisconsin to the
palisades of the Mississippi. They made their tribute to the
magic in the huge effigy mounds and the painted totems on the
walls of the palisades. The totems of the animals that sustained
their society.

     The Frenchmen, Marquette and Joliet, made the passage of
the Wisconsin, claimed the Mississippi, and saw the Indian
signs, but their thoughts were for their distant god and their
eyes were for the fabulous wealth of furs that this land could
bestow.

     The Americans, both old and new emigrants, had the keenest
vision yet. They saw beneath the earth the veins of galena an
ore of lead and zinc. Soon molten lead was thundering down the
shot towers at Dubuque. This dreadful rain emerged from the tank
at the bottom as bird shot to take the migratory birds that used
the flyway of the Mississippi.

     These busy clever people were filling up their new country
in fine style, but in 1860 trouble came along. Their new nation
was tearing itself apart. At first, the war seemed far away, but
soon Vicksburg, Mississippi, the city on the bluff, came under
siege, and became one of the hot spots of the war.

     If the city fell the Mississippi river would be open. The
Confederacy cut in two and doomed. General Grant, a native of
this little mining city of Galena, a mining city only a few
miles across the Wisconsin line in Illinois, was told to take
Vicksburg, and what he was told to do he did.

     The four states of the upper Mississippi began to pour
their men, their metal, and their timber down the river. They
won, Vicksberg fell. The same day, the South's great effort
failed at Gettysburg. The South was doomed, but many men had yet
to die.

     This was all 15 years in the past before my story of two
dreadful days at Brodhead. The 15 years had been hard ones. The
union had been saved, but at terrible cost. Its debts were many
and money was tight. The lead mine at Brodhead was just an empty
hole in the ground. The best timbers had gone down the river to
build the floating batteries and frame the new fangled iron clad
steamers that had battered Vicksberg into submission. The
timbers had also built the dreadful prison at Rock Island where
so many southern prisoners had died of cold and pneumonia.

     They did not suffer alone, the fevers of the South were so
deadly and persistent that the union soldiers who willingly
faced the Confederate guns fled the horrors of the Union
hospitals of the siege lines. Even if they made it home, they
brought the deadly taint home with them in their blood.

     The war filled many new graves in towns like Brodhead. In
spite of grief and hardship these people had the strength to
make a new holiday, a holiday to decorate the graves of their
dead with the flowers of the land they had died for, a holiday
to celebrate their victory and to celebrate the bounty of their
new land. They called it simply Decoration Day and set it in the
calendar with the coming of summer in the last week of May.

     The invasion of Brodhead began the day before the holiday.
This was the last day of school and the children of the town and
many from the farms were roaming the sandy street and the wooden
sidewalk of the Brodhead's shopping area, trading they called it
as much of their shopping was by barter.

     Most of the people were sheltered from the sun by the
wooden sunshades across the store fronts. The hitching rails
along both sides of the over wide street were occupied by
patient horses lazily stamping and switching flies. It was
summer time all right. Several rigs were waiting at the ice
house back of the butcher shops. This was the traditional day to
take home a big cake of ice and make ice cream to go with new
season strawberries.

     Townspeople and farmers alike were busy in a leisurely sort
of way. Tradition said that the corn should be planted by
Decoration Day and it was. Indeed you could row it. If you
looked down the rows you could see the faint green line where
the sprouts were breaking through the brown earth.

     Almost everyone had quiet peaceful plans and expectations,
but something different was on its way. The first signs came
when the morning was turning into afternoon. There was no real
agreement about who saw it first, but there it was a little
cloud in the southern sky. A proverbial cloud no bigger than a
man's hand.

     The people of this quiet town were too busy bustling about
preparing for tomorrow's holiday to be gazing at the sky. The
veterans of the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) were
checking the fit of their dress blues for the parade tomorrow
and shining their weapons including the two small brass cannons,
trophies taken from a sunken southern steamboat at Vicksburg.

     The women of the Ladies Aids were decorating their churchs
with the fragrant lilacs and mock orange blossoms. A fragrance
that will always linger with those who celebrated Decoration Day
in middle America before it became Memorial Day.

     The darkening and the chill of the shadow as the cloud of
birds swept up main street came without warning. The cry of
pigeons, passenger pigeons, brought these busy people pouring
out into the street where all stared upward as if hypnotized.
The birds flew high above as tho they would never end. The sound
of their wings filled the town like an organ note.

     Suddenly a bird faltered in flight and began to tumble from
the sky. The little crowd in front of the Mercantile, the
largest general store, gasped and gasped again as the bird
regained its balance. But it was no use, she was finished, and
made an awkward landing in a mock orange bush across the street.

     The scene was frozen for a moment. Then Johnny Dirkson,
about 12, broke away ran to the bush, swarmed into the branches
and grabbed the bird by the feet. He came running back to show
off his bird, but old man Hawker a man of the woods, deftly
relieved him of his prize.

     "Gimme my bird. It's my bird, my bird, I am going to eat
it." Johnny had been pushed aside, but he sure made himself
heard.

     "You can have your bird, Sonny, but I will look at it
first." Hawker held the bird up out of Johnny's reach where all
could see.

     An old Dutch woman who held her place in the crowd of men
by sheer bulk said, "That's a purty birdie," and indeed it was.
More like a dove than a pigeon and larger than either. It was
the blue gray of a dove, but with a longer tail and marked with
gay colors. Bronze on the breast with a green collar shading off
to a metallic blues over the shoulders like a shawl. The head
was small and neat like a dove's, but the bright eyes were
glazed with fever.

     Hawker dug his old hard finger into the birds breast "There
is bird shot in there. Just under the skin." He pulled out his
finger with a brown stain on it and smelled his fingers. "Been
in there a while. I think the market hunters been after these
birds."

     He shifted his grip back toward the vent on the bird's
body. "She is heavy with unlaid eggs. These birds got to come
down. Expect we'll see them out by the camp meeting grounds in
them scrub pine woods." Having given his verdict the old
woodsman carefully handed the bird back to the frantic Johnny.
"Hang on tight she can still fly."

     Johnny said, "I'll fix that." He took the birds small head
in a grubby paw and whirled the bird around. The slender neck
quickly parted and the body fell into the dusty street.

     The bystanders scattered to evade the flopping body which
floundered about spraying blood. She nearly regained her feet
then stumbled forward digging her neck into the dust as if
seeking her missing head. Johnny snatched her up and departed
with his prize. Other youthful cries told of other birds down
weary or injured. The skies were now clear over head, but the
hunt was on.

     The growing crowd in the street was strangely silent as if
reluctant to break the spell that had descended with the passing
of that multitude of beating wings. That silence could not last,
these people had led dull and quiet lives since the war had
ended. The mines had closed and the rowdy lumberjacks had moved
on as the merchantable timber was cleared.

     The flood of new people was mostly from the Germanic low
countries of northern Europe and they brought their knowledge of
cows and the dairy trades with them and it was well they did.
This was grass and hay country and the cow was queen here.

     The bovine queens preferred a regular and quiet life and
faithful worship at their flank twice every day. That chore,
seated on a one legged stool with forehead buried in a cows
flank and both hands busy pulling tits, is boring even for a
dumb Dutchman. Dumb or not these people had seen a natural
wonder, something new had happened and once the silence was
broken they were ready to talk.

     Talk, they did, in a weird mixture of German, Dutch and
English. They were used to this and the meanings were passed
along. It took a lot of fistays and ya ya and nein nein, but it
got the meaning across.

     Where did the birds come from? The old Welsh preacher was
sure he knew. He had come to minister the Welsh miners who had
come to labor in the lead mine and he had stayed on when the
lead and the miners had gone. He was of the old school that
believed the birds that disappeared in the winter went to the
moon for shelter. Ordinary birds did not breed up there, but
these painted doves, these baseball birds, he called them did
and came back to earth in their millions as a plague sent by
Satan.

     Willy, the diminutive German harness maker, was a man of
the enlightment. He spent his days stitching leather and his
evenings poring over huge German books of the newly emerging
sciences. This nonsense of birds on the moon sent by Satan was
too much for him and launched into combat with the old preacher,
but his squeaky voice was no match for the sonorus boom of the
old man.

     Anyway, the real interest was in the birds. Were they
really good to eat? And how to get some and how they should be
cooked?

     Peter Popolydes, the Greek tavern keeper, could answer
that, "I'll tell you that, in my country, we eat the small birds
that come to cross the sea. They very good, but not much meat.
These big fat birds very good."

     Then he committed himself. "You get birds. I show you. I
cook for all of you."

     He spread wide his arms in a gesture he would honor as an
honest Greek. If the birds came down of course.

     That was answered Zeke Brown's oldest boy came into town at
a dead run. His old brown horse was lathered white and he was
shouting the "Pigeons are down, the pigeons are down. They are
pulling up paw's corn patch like mad. He has killed a gunny sack
full already. "But I got to get more powder and shot."

     He pushed his way into the store, but several canny Yankees
were ahead of him at the counter stocking up on powder and shot.
The boy had to wait, but he was full of talk anyway.

     "Them birds is all over paw's place and way back into the
good for nothing pine woods around the old camp meeting grounds.
You should have heard the limbs cracking and popping when they
landed. They was all guluting and goo gooing. It sounded like
the water on the beach when there is a storm over on the big
lake at Milwaukee."

     Hawker was in the store looking at the lunacy at the
counter with displeasure.

     "Buying enough powder to start a war." These towns people
know nothing about the woods or the birds. Just to go out in the
woods and boom boom and drive the birds away.

     The Injuns knows how. They just let the birds settle down
and build their nests. Then go out after dark with torches and
willow poles, and knock down all the birds you want. No noise,
no fuss, and no shot in the meat to break up their teeth.

     He pulled at his lips to show his own brown and broken
teeth.

     The buyers of ammunition obviously were not listening.
Hawker went on "You'll go out there and raise such a hullabaloo
that the birds will rise again. They can fly by the moonlight.
It's full moon tonight."

     "Pester them enough and they won't even nest, just drop the
eggs anywhere, much less set on them. There ain't no use talking
to you, the market hunters probably be here tomorrow and get the
birds anyway. They got them big old 8 gauge and bigger shot
guns, regular cannons."

     These were words these people understood. They had seen
more birds then the whole town could eat in the rest of their
lives, but outsiders was going to get their birds. The town had
cannon and cannoneers too.

     One of the veterans said "By God! We can get them guns up
on Bald Knob. There's a good track right to the top and we can
cover the whole camp meeting woods. If those birds rise again,
we can load with shot and knock down a wagon load. Nobody is
going to get our birds."

     Old Tom Hawker growled "Fools, damn fools," and left the
store.

     The crowd in the town rapidly scattered. The birds were the
attraction now and there were still the almost forgotten holiday
preparations. There were always chores. A lot of cows were going
to get milked early that night.

     By dark, the people were gathered at the old camp meeting
ground in astonishing numbers. Those were times when every forty
acres took a man's labor and the country was more heavily
peopled than it has been since.

     In the clearings and the fields, it was still possible to
see gun sights and guns still were heard. In the woods, torches
were flitting about.

     The center of interest was Peter Popolydes. He had scooped
a trench in the sandy soil between two down logs. In the trench
some of Zeke Brown's hard wood fence rails were settling into a
bed of glowing coals. Over the coals were roasting along row of
birds on iron rods borrowed from the blacksmith shop. Peter was
basting them with a mixture from the old country. A man of his
word.

     A huge black iron cauldron of the kind used to scald hogs
at butchering time bubbled merrily on a separate fire of pine
knots.

     It was self serve. The patrons scalded, plucked and gutted
their own bird. There wasn't a boy or man that wasn't carrying a
sharp pocket knife. There were plenty of birds, birds by the
gunny sack full.

     The smell of roasting meat covered the whole area. This was
carnival. The festival of meat. The festival of carnivores when
the hunters came home with more meat than the tribe could eat. A
festival from deep in prehistory.

     The grownups were pretty well gathered now, in family or at
least related groups. Most had a beer keg or an earthenware
whiskey jug open.

     The young people were busy in the woods with torches
knocking down the roosting birds. As time passed boys chasing
screaming girls through the darkening woods seemed to offer
better sport even than the birds.

     Every human sound was there, from the deep rumble of
laughter from huge German bellies to the shrill screeches of the
girls as the pursuit grew hot. The sonorous periods of the old
Welsh preacher denouncing the rampart sin topped them all, but
did not seem to have much effect on the young.

     The beleaguered birds tempted by the light sky suddenly
rose with a rush like a waterfall, the cannoneers with their
determination that their birds should not escape were ready. The
two war trophy cannons were loaded and ready on top of Bald
Knob. They fired with almost a single report. Sparks and flaming
bits of wadding streaked across the sky like comets.

     Spent shot, dismembered birds, guts and feathers rained
down on the woods driving out the active hunters. A sudden
silence reigned and a woman's voice, by accent from the
mountains of Kentucky, could be clearly heard.

     "Mirandy. Where is my Mirandy. Jethro. You go find her. If
she is out there in the woods with those young bucks she will
have a belly on her before the snow flies and then what will we
do."

     Next day, Decoration Day got under way rather feebly by the
efforts of the women and younger children, but the parade was
held, the graves were decorated, and the Gettysburg Address was
recited. The cannons were not retrieved from Bald Knob in time
and no salute to the dead was fired. Brodhead had had enough
excitement.

     By noon, the ceremonies were over and people were drawn to
the birds at the woods and Zeke Brown's farm. The birds were
still milling about in small flocks and everyone with access to
gun was after them.

     The professionals were there too, market hunters. They had
come in three quartermaster wagons left over from the war years.
Near them, strung out along a picket line, military style, were
the long legged Missouri mules in four mule teams that had kept
the hunters hot on the pigeons tracks.

     Only one hunter was in sight. He had set up a makeshift
counter with a tray of pennies, two and three cent pieces and
other small change and was buying birds from the locals. Many of
his suppliers were children. They working through the woods.
Many stunned and crippled birds were hiding in the pine straw
and downed branches of the ravaged woods. The children were
optimistic enough to bring in anything that still had feathers
on it, but a great heap of rejects showed that money changer was
not parting with his pennies for anything, but prime goods.

     Soon the other two hunters came out of the trees on
muleback. Huge sacks of birds hung on each side of the mules.
This was an efficient operation.

     The real spectator attraction was a black man the market
hunters had brought with them to do the niggar work around the
camp. Very few of the home folks had ever seen a black man and
finally they had their chance to see what the war had been
about.

     The press arrived too. A dude reporter in a tall hat, black
suit and shinny boots. The tight pants had straps under the
instep to hold them down. He wanted to know whose farm this was.
That was easy Zeke was over there in his corn patch replanting.
Hoe in hand and a bag of seed corn at his belt.

     Zeke was not in a very good mood. Asked how much he thought
the damage was. He thought "About a million dollars." Next
question was "Do you think the pigeons will come again?" "If
they don't never come back it will be too soon."

Zeke got his wish, the pretty birds "Didn't never come back
again."

                     DISCLAIMERS

     The last passenger pigeon died in Cincinnati zoo in the
second year of my life, but both my mother and her sister Aunt
Nettie were bird people and their grief and indignation at the
callous extermination of the most numerous American bird were
part of my childhood.

     Old Charlie was my Uncle Frank's partner in their itinerant
sewing machine repair business.

     Charlie was born and raised in Brodhead, Wisconsin, and as
a young man witnessed the communal flight and nesting of the
pigeons. Also the attack on them.

     I listened to his yarns and several times visited Brodhead.
I have eaten the cheese from the factory there. I can only hope
to capture the flavor of that time and place as well as those
old cheesemakers did. I can not and do not make any claim of
historical or scientific accuracy.