Thomas Brooks was in the kitchen preparing hamburger vegetable soup for supper. It was mid-December, about five-thirty in the afternoon. The twilight had almost faded into darkness, with only a small hint of daylight faintly visible outside the kitchen window. Allene was in the sunroom putting together gift bags for their annual Christmas brunch with friends the following Sunday. She had just walked into the dining room when there was a loud thud. “Oh, no!” she cried. “Tommy, it’s a bird! It just flew into the sunroom door. It’s laying on the second step on its back. Its leg is twitching!” Their whippet Tilley scurried to the back door to check things out and Allene shooed her back into the dining room.
Thomas went to the glass door of the sunroom and looked. The bird appeared to have a reddish-orange upper breast, a white belly and was dark around the head, wings and back. “It’s pretty dark out, but I think it’s a Bluebird,” said Thomas. “Oh no,” she said. Thomas went back to the kitchen for a paper towel to wrap around the bird before he buried it. When he returned he looked closer at the bird and said, “I’m wrong, it’s a young male Cardinal,” he said.
“Awww!”
“He was attacking himself in the reflection of the glass. Cardinals feed late in the day, but I’m surprised he was out when it’s this dark.”
Thomas opened the door, walked out on the steps and bent over the bird. He saw that its eyes were open and clear, so he decided to turn the bird upright and see if it only had been stunned. When he picked the bird up to turn him, it kicked hard twice with his right leg. Thomas rolled the bird over. It remained upright and steady but sat motionless, staring into space. Thomas laughed. “You’re in la-la land, aren’t you little buddy? I’ll check back on you in a bit.” He went inside and Allene asked, “Did you bury him?”
“No, I stood him up and he didn’t fall over. He’s not sure who or what he is, but he’s sitting upright.”
Thomas went into the kitchen and combined the ground beef, onions and celery into the bottom of the large stockpot. He sautéed them until the meat was brown and the onions were translucent. He then drained the grease, returned the meat and other ingredients to the pot and added chicken broth. He then walked to the sunroom door. The young Cardinal was still sitting on the step, motionless but upright. Thomas returned to the kitchen, added vegetables to the meat and the broth, turned on the burner and let the soup simmer for ten minutes. He checked on the bird again, who was still sitting upright and motionless. It was a after six o’clock by then. It was completely dark by then and the bird had been sitting on the step for about twenty minutes. Thomas added potatoes and carrots to the soup, covered the pot and returned it to simmer. He checked on the bird again. It was still sitting and staring forward. Thomas was beginning to get worried. The bird had been sitting on the step and not moved for half an hour. “Maybe he did some serious brain damage,” he thought and opened the sunroom door. As soon as he opened it, the bird chirped and flew off under the rail of the steps. Thomas shut the door, locked it, walked into the dining room and gave a thumbs up to Allene. “I opened the door, he chirped and flew away,” he said.
“Was he able to fly far? He didn’t fall in the yard, did he?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll check on him before we go to bed.”
“Oh, good. Thank you for taking care of him.”
After dinner Thomas went out into the back yard and under the floodlight checked in the direction the Cardinal had flown. It wasn’t on the ground anywhere, so that was a good sign. He climbed the back stairs, locked the sunroom door and went to bed.
The next morning Thomas rose early and made coffee. At first light, he went out and checked the back yard again. The bird was nowhere to be seen. The familiar ‘cheer, cheer, cheer’ and ‘birdie, birdie, birdie’ calls of the Cardinals filled the trees. “Well, that’s encouraging,” said Thomas to himself. “I’ll bet he’s got some kind of headache this morning.” He went back to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee and was standing at the window watching the big green feeder in the middle of the yard when a young juvenile cardinal with a dark head and coat landed and began to feed. Allene came down the stairs and into the kitchen, yawning. “Hey, babe,” she said. “Hey,” Thomas replied. “Come look at this.” She walked over to the window and he pointed at the feeder. “There’s our boy,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep, that’s him.”
“How can you tell?”
“The dark head and coat. I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that’s him.”
“I hope so. Thank you again for saving him.”
“You’re welcome, but all I did was get him back on his feet. He did the rest.” Thomas took a sip of coffee and said, “If he can keep from trying to beat himself up, hopefully by this time next year he’ll be a beautiful red Christmas Cardinal.”