St. Nicholas/Volume 32/Number 2/Little Pete
Little Pete.
A Carrier-pigeon that Traveled Eight Thousand Miles
to Reach Home
By Ross B. Franklin
Some time ago, a consignment of homing or carrier pigeons left San Francisco for Auckland, New Zealand, to be used in carrying communications between Auckland and Great Barrier Island; and among the little feathered messengers was a bird named Pete, which belonged to me. Pete was always known as a wise fellow, his intelligence at times causing people to marvel. But Pete was a tramp; that is, he could not be depended upon if sent on a long trip, often loitering on the way to hunt food or to play, perhaps staying out hours when he should have been absent only minutes. So Peter was shipped away to be used as a loft-bird—on which stays at the home loft to attract returning messengers. Well, he went this time because he could n’t help it; but his cunning played a fine trick on his new owners. This bird was taken two thousand miles by land to San Francisco; two thousand and eighty-nine miles by water to Hawaii; thence, two thousand two hundred and forty miles by water to the Samoan Islands; thence, sixteen hundred miles by water to Auckland—in all nearly eight thousand miles; and—now Pete is at home again!
The home-coming of this bird is little short of marvelous, and this is how he accomplished it. Watching carefully for an opportunity to escape, after landing at Auckland, Pete took to his wings, and finding in the harbor the vessel which had carried him so far from home, he radiated from its masts in every direction, searching for a familiar scene or object, which, of course, he could not find so many thousand miles away from his American dove-cote. However, he stayed near the ship, perhaps thinking it would return to America; but when the vessel finally steamed out headed for Australia instead of the United States, Pete deserted his perch and struck out straight toward his home land. So it hap- pened that the Lucy Belle, an old-fashioned sailing vessel laden with lumber from the Samoan Isles, when three days from Christmas Island, was boarded by an almost exhausted stranger; and the stranger was nobody in the world but Mr, Pete. As the old sailor is a very superstitious being, Pete was welcomed amid cries of wonder at encountering a homing-pigeon in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and was allowed to ride wherever he chose on shipboard. The bird was kindly treated and fed, and one day, during a storm which frightened him and drove the little tramp to shelter on deck, it was discovered that he carried a small tag on one leg, bearing a number and his name. He was placed in a box with slats for bars, and in this condition came into San Francisco Bay with the Lucy Belle, just as happy at sight of land as any member of the crew, who considered him a mascot.
The story of the Lucy Belle’s mascot soon spread among the shipfolk along the wharves, and in a few hours Pete was identified as having been shipped some weeks before for Auckland. Then it was that the people understood that the crafty fellow was homeward-bound.
All this is wonderful enough; but the fact that Pete reached home unaided over two thonsand miles of land route is, perhaps, only less wonderful. But he did.
It was argued on the Lucy Belle that a bird possessing a brain wise enough to figure out an ocean voyage could reach his home on land; and after some debate, the sailors securely fastened a little story to Pete's leg, reciting his adventures so far as known to them, and turned him loose. How the dear little wanderer found his way home he alone can tell.
It took Pete nine days to travel the two thousand miles, in covering which, of course, he must have stopped often; for, if he could have gone straight home, the distance could have been made in thirty or forty hours. We who had sent him off to Auckland had not the slightest idea that he was this side of the equator, or of the world, when, one morning, not long ago, Mr. Pete quietly hopped down from the home loft, and, without any fuss whatever, joined his mates at a breakfast of corn, wheat, and crumbs!
Now, what do you think of him?
He will never be sent away again: for there is not sufficient money at the disposal of any one man to secure him.
If you know of any girls of boys who are discontented at home, show them this story of Pete, who so loved his humble abode of rough board and hard straw that he outwitted cunning men and defied the risks and hardships of an eight-thousand-mile journey over sea and land, in the effort to return to his home.
The picture on the opposite page is made from an actual photograph of Pete.
