OH, how snug!” I exclaimed. “You have a little hall and a bedroom, and how clean it is! The old birds say they like to see a bird tidy his nest from one year to another. Do you keep the same mate?”
“I do,” he replied. “I always have Jennie, but as you probably know, sparrows don’t pair till spring. In the winter the birds are in flocks. Jennie is spending these hard months with her parents downtown near the station because the food supply is better there. I often go to see her, and I expect her back soon to begin housekeeping. We like to get ahead of the others in nesting, for there are evil birds who try every year to drive us from our desirable home.”
“Everything born has to fight,” I said cheerfully.
“I don’t know much about canaries,” said Chummy. “All that I have seen were very exclusive and haughty, and looked down on us street birds.”
“Some of my family are that way,” I sighed, “but I have been much with human beings and my little head has more wisdom in it.”
“I like you,” Chummy began to say heartily; then he stopped short, cried out, and said, “Duck your head quick and come inside!”
I scuttled from his wide open hallway into his little bedroom, wondering what had happened. A shower of nutshells had just been dropped past our beaks. “Who’s doing that?” I asked.
“Squirrie—he hates me because he can’t get a foothold to explore this house.”
“And who is Squirrie?” I asked.
“The worst little rascal of a squirrel that you ever saw. He respects nobody, and what do you think is his favorite song?—not that he can sing. His voice is like a crow’s.”
“I can’t imagine what kind of songs a squirrel would sing,” I said.
“I’ll run over it for you,” said Chummy, “though I haven’t a very good voice myself.
“‘I care for nobody, no not I,And nobody cares for me.I live in the middle of Pleasant StreetAnd happy will I be!’
“‘I care for nobody, no not I,
And nobody cares for me.
I live in the middle of Pleasant Street
And happy will I be!’
“Now what do you think of that for a selfish song in these hard times?”
I laughed heartily. “Perhaps you take Squirrie too seriously. I’d like to see the little rogue. Does he live in this house of yours?”
“Yes, right up over us under the roof. He gnawed a hole through from the outside this summer, and stored an enormous quantity of nuts that he stole from good Mrs. Lacey at the corner grocery on the next street. He has an enormous place to scamper about in if he wishes to stretch his legs. He says in the corner of it he has a delightfully warm little bed-place, lined with tiny soft bits of wool and fur torn from ladies’ dresses, for he has the run of most of the bedrooms in the neighborhood. Have you seen the two old maids that live in the big attic of this house?”
“Yes, my mistress calls them the bachelor girls,” I said politely.
“Girls,” he said scornfully; “they’re more like old women. Well, anyway, they’re afraidof mice and rats, and when Squirrie wakes up and scampers across the boards to his pantry to get a nut, and rolls it about, and gnaws it, and nibbles it, they nearly have a fit, and run to the landlady and hurry her up the three flights of stairs.
“She listens and pants, and says, ‘It must be a rat, it’s too noisy for a mouse.’ Then she goes down cellar and gets a rat-trap and props its big jaws open with a bit of cheese and sets it in a corner of the room.
“Squirrie watches them through a tiny hole in the trapdoor in the ceiling that he made to spy on them, and he nearly dies laughing, for he loves to tease people, and he hisses at them in a low voice, ‘The trap isn’t made yet that will catch me. I hope you’ll nip your own old toes in it.’”
“What very disrespectful talk,” I exclaimed.
“Oh, he doesn’t care for anybody, and the other night his dreadful wish came true, and he was so delighted that he most lost his breath and had squirrel apoplexy.”
“How did it happen?” I asked.
The sparrow ran his little tongue out over his beak, for he dearly loves to talk, and went on,“You see, the bachelor ladies were moving their furniture about to make their room look prettier, and they forgot the trap, and Miss Maggie did catch her toe in it, and there was such a yelling and screaming that it woke me out of a sound sleep.
“The lodgers all came running upstairs with fire extinguishers, and flat irons, and pokers, and one man had a revolver. I thought the house was on fire, and I flew out of my little hole in the wall to this tree. I came here, and from a high limb I could look right in the attic window. The lodgers were all bursting into the room and poor Miss Maggie, in curl papers and pink pajamas, was shrieking and dancing on one foot, and holding up the other with the trap on the toe of her bedroom slipper.
“Out on the roof, Squirrie was bending down to look at her. He was lying on his wicked little stomach, and he laughed so hard that at last he had to roll over in the snow on the roof to get cool. He looked terrible, and we all hoped he was going to pass away in the night, but the next morning as we sat round on the tree talking about him, and trying to think of some good thing he had done, he poked his head out of thehole which is his front door, and made the most ugly faces at us that you can imagine. He is certainly a dreadful creature, and I shall be sorry for the housekeepers about here when the spring comes.”
I smiled at Chummy’s earnestness and settled down more comfortably with my breast against the bricks. The day was so pleasant that I thought I would stay out a little longer. I knew by the look in his little, bright eye that the sparrow liked talking to me. We were in a patch of sunlight that crept in his front door, and after the long cold winter the nice warm feeling on our feathers was very comforting.
“How does Squirrie trouble the housekeepers?” I asked.
“Well, to begin with, he bothers them because he has no home duties. He is an ugly, odd, old bachelor, and never gets a mate in the spring, because no self-respecting young squirrel will take up with such a scamp.”
“Poor creature!” I said. “It is enough to make any one ugly to live alone.”
Chummy went on: “Squirrie has been two years only in this neighborhood. He never stays long anywhere, for his bad deeds makeenemies for him, and he is driven away. When he first came here he lived in Snug Hollow, that big hole in the half-dead elm at the corner. Just opposite the tree is a lodging-house. You can see it from here, that one with the upper verandas. It is kept by a soldier’s widow, and she is rather poor. She could not afford to put in window screens, and Squirrie had a royal time with one of her lodgers, a young student up in the third story. He was very odd, and would eat no meat. He lived on nuts, cheese, fruit, eggs, and bread—just the things Squirrie likes. So he made up his mind to board with the student. The young man was a fresh-air fiend, and never closed his windows. This just suited Squirrie, so whenever this young Dolliver went over to the University, Squirrie would spring from a tree branch to the roof, and was down on the veranda and into the room in a trice. He rarely ate anything on the spot. He carried everything away to his hole in the tree, so the student thought that the maid who did his room must be stealing his things.
“He questioned her, but she said she knew nothing about his food. Then he locked the chest of drawers where he kept his supplies.Squirrie climbed up the back, enlarged a knothole and went in that way. The student thought the girl must have a key. So he went to the landlady. She dismissed the maid and got another, but the student’s things went faster than ever.
“The next thing was that the student lost his temper and told the soldier’s widow that she would do well to feed her maid better, and she told him that if he didn’t like her house he could get out.
“However, she sent this second girl away and got another. It was the same old story—nuts, fruit, cheese, bread still vanished. Then the student got in a worse temper, and turned all the clothes out of his trunk and made that his pantry, and carried the key in his pocket.
“Now he lost nothing, for Squirrie, clever as he was, could not get in a locked trunk. He was up a tree, indeed, but he was clever enough to find a way down. The soldier’s widow was his next victim, and he would watch the windows and see where she was, and often when her back was turned he would dart in the house, seize some bit of food, and run away with it.
“‘Now,’ said the soldier’s widow, ‘this lastgirl is dishonest, too. She can’t get into the student’s trunk, and she has turned against me.’ So she sent her away, though the girl cried and said she was well brought up, and would not steal a pin.
“By this time the house had such a bad name among maids that the soldier’s widow could not get another, and she had too much work to do and became thin and miserable, and still the stealing went on, till at last she said, ‘I must be a thief myself, and don’t know it.’
“However, any one who does wrong is always paid up for it, and Squirrie was soon caught. By this time he was so fat he could scarcely run, and he had enough nuts and hard biscuits laid up to last him for two winters. To keep down his flesh, he began to tease the dog in the lodging-house. Not in the daytime, for he did not wish to be seen. He used to chatter, chatter to Rover as he lay on the porch in the warm summer evenings, and tease him by sitting up on his hind legs and daring him to play chase. There was no cat in the house to head Squirrie off, so he would run round and round the yard and sometimes in the front door, and out the back, with old Rover loping afterhim, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, and his face quite silly.
“‘The dog has gone crazy,’ said the soldier’s widow one evening, as she saw Rover running about the yard and sometimes down to the old barn behind the house and back again. ‘He will have to be poisoned.’
“Rover was nearly crazy. He left the mischievous squirrel and ran to his good mistress, and put his paws on her knees, but she did not understand and pushed him away.
“I felt terribly and wondered whether I could not do something to help.”
“How did you know all this?” I interrupted. “You would be in bed dark evenings.”
“Why surely you know,” said Chummy, “that all birds of the day tell their news to the birds of the night—to owls, to bats, and even to some insects. Then, in turn, we get the news of the night. I had a very smart young screech-owl watching Squirrie for me.”
“Yes, yes,” I said hurriedly. “We cage birds are more handicapped than you wild ones. I know, though, about the bird exchange. I’ve heard the old birds say that they have even had to depend on cockroaches sometimes for itemsof news, when they couldn’t get about themselves.”
“Well,” continued Chummy, “I made up my mind something had to be done to enlighten the soldier’s widow, so the next morning I just hovered round and gave up all thought of breakfast for myself, though of course I rose extra early, and fed the young ones before my mate got up.
“I watched the soldier’s widow when she took the bottle of milk from the refrigerator and put it on the pantry shelf. I watched her when she poured some in a little pitcher and put it on the dining-room table. I still kept my eye on her when she went to the back door to speak to the vegetable man, but after that I watched Squirrie.
“The little beast was darting into the dining-room. He went straight for the milk pitcher and holding on the edge with his paws, he ran his head away down into it, to get a good long drink.
“I lighted on the window sill and gave a loud squawk. The soldier’s widow turned round, looked past me, and saw Squirrie with his head in the milk pitcher. She gave a loud and joyful squeal, dropped the cabbage she was holdingand ran in the room, just in time to see Squirrie with a very milky face darting out the other door to the front of the house.
“Oh, how happy she was! It had all come over her in a flash what a goose she had been not to have guessed it was a squirrel that was defrauding her. She ran up to the student’s room to tell him the good news, and he went to the window and shook his fist at Squirrie and called him the red plague.”
“What did Squirrie say?” I asked.
“Squirrie said, ‘I don’t care,’ and instead of hiding from them, as he had always done before, he came boldly out on a branch, and licked his milky paws. Then he moved six doors down the street to a house where two maiden ladies lived. They have gone away now, but they kept a small tea-room and sold cake and candy. Squirrie went creeping round them, and they thought it was cute to have a little pet, so they used to put nuts for him on their windows.”
“Didn’t they know what mischief he had done at the corner?” I asked.
“No—you young things don’t know how it is in a city. No one knows or cares who livesnear by. In the nice, kind country you know everyone for miles round. Well, Squirrie got so familiar with these ladies that he used to sleep in the house and tease the family cat. He didn’t do much mischief at first. He knew he was in a good place, but one day just before Easter, Satan entered into him, and he played the poor ladies a very scurvy trick.
“They had been getting their baskets all ready for Easter sales, and had them in rows on a big table—such cute-looking little Japanese baskets, they were, all red and yellow and filled with layers of nuts and candy.
“This day both ladies went downtown to buy more things for more baskets, and Squirrie got into the room and began playing with those that were finished. I saw him through the window, but what could I do? When I chirped to him that he was a bad beast to spoil the work of the two ladies who had been so good to him, he chattered his teeth and made a face at me.
“Now, if he had just played with one or two baskets, it would not have mattered so much, but he is like Silly Bob in cherry time.”
“Who is Silly Bob?” I asked.
“A robin who is weak in his head. Instead of eating a few cherries, he runs all over a tree, and gives each cherry a dab in the cheek—ruins them all and makes the gardeners furious with him. Squirrie ran up and down the rows of tempting-looking baskets, so afraid was he that he could not get all his mischief in before the ladies came back. He bit a few straws on the top of each one, then he attacked the sides and then the bottom. Then he tore the covers off and threw the candy and nuts on the floor.”
“What! Out of every one?” I asked, in a shocked voice.
“Every one, I tell you. Oh, they were a sight! Every basket was ruined. The nuts he carried off to his hole in the tree.”
“And what did the poor ladies say when they came back?” I asked.
“You should have seen their faces. They had paid fifty cents apiece for the baskets, and you know how expensive nuts and candies and raisins are. Then they got angry and hired a carpenter to come and nail up Squirrie’s hole in the tree, taking good care to see that he was out of it first. If he went near the house, they threw things at him.”
“And what did Squirrie do?”
“He said he was tired of city life and needed country air, and he went up on North Hill, and stayed till the ladies moved away, then he came back to their neighborhood and played another trick almost as bad, on a nice old grandfather.”
WHY, Squirrie is the mischief-maker of the neighborhood,” I said.
“He is indeed, and I would not advise you to cultivate him. He would be sure to get you into trouble.”
“What did he do to the grandfather?” I asked.
“Caused him to commit sin by beating an innocent dog,” said Chummy solemnly.
“Who was the dog?” I asked.
“Pluto was his name, but we all called him Cross-Patch, because he had a snarly temper. He was a good dog, though, for he tried so hard to overcome his faults. He had been a thief, but Grandfather had reasoned with him, and whipped him, till at last he was a perfectly honest dog—but he got a bad beating that Christmas.”
“Who was Grandfather?” I asked.
“Grandfather was a nice foreign man who lived in a little house round the corner. He had made some money in selling old clothes, and he was bringing up his daughter’s children. At Christmas time he had saved enough money to buy a nice tree for his grandchildren. He stayed up late Christmas eve to trim the tree, and Cross-Patch watched him. The blinds were up and another red squirrel called Chickari, who was a tremendous climber, told me that he watched the old man too, and it was pretty to see him hanging little bags of candy and candles and strings of popcorn on the branches.
“When he got through, he said, ‘Now, doggie, don’t you touch anything, and when the children strip the tree in the morning, you shall have your share of good things.’
“Cross-Patch wagged his tail. He had had a good supper, and was not hungry, and then he was a reformed dog.
“Unfortunately the old man, in trotting to and fro from the kitchen to the dining-room, where the tree was, forgot to bring Cross-Patch out, and he had to sleep in the room with thetree. Of course he touched nothing, but didn’t that scamp of a squirrel get in through some hole or corner.”
“What were those squirrels doing out on a winter night?” I asked.
“Red squirrels don’t sleep like logs through the winter, as some squirrels do,” said Chummy. “Chickari was prowling because his supplies had run low. Squirrie was out for mischief. He has a long head and always lays up enough and more than enough. Perhaps he felt the Christmas stir in the air. Anyway, he got into this old rickety cottage and ran up and down the Christmas tree, as if he were crazy, but he scarcely touched anything at the top. Just to tease Cross-Patch he nibbled and bit and tore at everything on the lower limbs.”
“Why didn’t Cross-Patch chase him?” I said indignantly.
“He did, but what can a dog do with a lively squirrel? Besides Cross-Patch could not see very well, although there was a moon shining in the room. He is getting old. However, he became so angry that at last he made a splendid leap in the air, and caught the tip end of Squirrie’s tail which is like a fine bushy flag.He got a mouthful of hair, and the tail did not look so fine afterward.
“Just when the noise was at its worst, Grandfather woke up and came in. Of course, Squirrie hid, and there stood Cross-Patch trembling in everylimb, his sorry eyes going to the torn candy bags and popcorn strewed over the floor.
“‘So—you are a backslider,’ said the old man. ‘Well, you have robbed my children, and I shall have to beat you.’ He was a patient old man, but now he was angry, and Cross-Patch was getting some good whacks and stripes from a rope end, when he began to choke over the squirrel fur in his mouth.
“The old man stopped beating, stared at him, and took the little bunch of fur that Cross-Patch spat out, and examined it. Then he dropped his rope and went to the tree.
“His face fell, and he looked sad. ‘Punish first, and examine afterward,’ he said. ‘How many persons do that with children. Why did I not observe that a dog could not have so despoiled this little tree without knocking it over? It is that pest of a squirrel who has been here. I might have known. Dog, I beg your pardon,’ and he shook hands quite solemnly withCross-Patch who took on the air of a suffering martyr.”
“And what did Squirrie do?” I asked. “Was his heart touched?”
“Not a bit of it. He went home chuckling, but what do you think he found?”
“I don’t know much about squirrel ways,” I said.
“I do,” said Chummy, “and they are fine-spirited little creatures, except the few that like to suck birds’ eggs and kill young. All the sparrows liked Chickari, and after that night he was a perfect hero among us. He knew Squirrie pretty well, and was sure he would remain to gloat over his mischief, so he whipped off to his cupboard—”
“Whose cupboard?” I asked. “His own, or Squirrie’s?”
“Squirrie’s—you know the little scamp’s old home in the tree called Snug Hollow had been boarded up, and the only place in the neighborhood he had been able to get was a poor refuge up on a roof. Well, Chickari knew where it was, and he had dashed off to it, and carried away nearly all of Squirrie’s nice winter hoard before he got back. Wasn’t Squirrie furious!He danced with rage on the moonlit roof when he got home. So a sparrow who slept up there told us. The noise woke him up, and he could plainly see Squirrie scampering, leaping, chattering—nose now up, now down, his four legs digging the snow, his tail wig-wagging! Oh, he was in a rage! He had to go south for the rest of the winter, but he came back in the spring, more wicked than ever, for it was in the following June that he became a murderer.”
“A murderer!” I said in a horrified tone.
“Yes—I will tell you about it, if you are not tired of my chirping.”
“No, no—I just love to hear you,” I said warmly.
THAT year Jennie and I had a lovely lot of young ones, quite early in June,” said Chummy. “One day we were out getting brown-tail moths, for I assure you we sparrows do eat lots of insect pests. We were just hurrying back to our hole in the wall with our beaks full, when a friendly warbler who was flying by said, ‘Wee-chee chee, chee, hurry, hurry, Squirrie is coming out of your hole licking red paws.’
“We dropped our loads and flew madly through the air.”
“Why, I thought you said he could not get up that sheer wall,” I remarked, looking at it as it stretched above and below us, for we had moved back to Chummy’s front doorway.
“So I did, but a workman had come to do something to the chimney, and had left a ladder standing against the wall.”
“You don’t mean to say Squirrie had killed your young ones?”
“Every one; there they lay in the nest, their dear little throats bitten.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“My mate Jennie was nearly crazy, and so was I. I called up some of my sparrow friends, Jim and Dandy and Johnny White-Tail and Black Gorget, and Squirrie got the most awful pecking a squirrel ever had. We chased him all over the housetops and on to the trees. He leaped from one branch to another, and we took nips out of him till he was red, too, and very sore. You see, he had no Snug Hollow to run to.”
“If he had been a good squirrel,” I said, “those ladies would not have had his home boarded up.”
“Just so. Squirrie was beginning to find out that a bad squirrel always gets punished by some bird or beast. Well, at last the little wretch found his breath giving out, and he chattered, ‘Mer-mer-mercy!’ We all gathered round him, as he lay panting on a limb flat on his stomach to get cool. We bound him over to keep the peace, telling him that if he everkilled another sparrow, he would be driven out of the neighborhood.”
“I wonder if you should not have driven him away then, in the interests of other little birds?”
“But there are so many bird murderers,” said the sparrow patiently. “Boys stone us and shoot us, cats hunt us. Black Thomas, the cat in the boarding-house, boasts that he catches fifty birds a year, foreigners kill us, especially Italians who will shoot even a chickadee to put in their soup. It seems to me that everybody is down on birds, and they are hardest of all on sparrows.”
“Chummy,” I said, “I have known you only this afternoon, but I feel as if I had been acquainted with you for as long a time as if you had been brought up in the bird-room with me, and now I am going to ask you a very personal question. Don’t sparrows do some very wrong things?”
He smiled. “Oh, I see you have heard that anti-sparrow talk. I am not touchy about it. You can discuss it with me.”
“You seem a sensible bird,” I said. “Come now, tell me what you think you do that is wrong.”
He hung his little, dark head, and pretended to pick a feather from his black bib. “We are regular John Bull, Anglo-Saxon stock,” he said, “and we love to push on and settle in new countries. We were brought to the United States and Canada about fifty years ago to kill the canker worm. Some gentlemen near Toronto raised a subscription to bring us here. We spread all over this continent. We had to fight for our existence, and all the weak ones died. The strong ones became stronger, then we multiplied too much. Men should have watched us.”
“Good,” I said, “you believe that human beings come first and all birds should be subject to them.”
“Certainly,” he replied, “that is the first article in a sparrow’s creed, and there is no bird in the world that sticks to man as closely as the sparrow does. Why, we even sleep round men’s houses, tucked away in the most uncomfortable holes and corners. We really love human beings though they rarely pet us.”
“Our Mary pets sparrows,” I said stoutly; “so does her mother.”
“They are exceptions,” said Chummy, “fewpersons are as kind-hearted as the Martins. I just wish all human beings would do as well by us as they have done by you canaries. They keep you in order, and let you increase or decrease just as is necessary, but they have let sparrows run wild, and it is as hard for us as for them. There is a great hue and cry against sparrows now, and men and women going along the street look up at us and say, ‘You little nuisances,’ and I chirp back, ‘It is your own fault.’”
“What could they do to you?” I asked. “You don’t want to be shot.”
“No, indeed,” said Chummy, “nor poisoned. Our eggs should be destroyed for a few years; then there would not be so many of us.”
“But that is very hard on the mothers,” I said. “They cry so when an egg is broken.”
“My Jennie would cry,” said Chummy, “but she would understand, and she would not make so many nests. She knows that food and nests make all the trouble in the world. That’s what the seagulls tell us about the great war human beings had over the sea. They say it was all about food and homes that wicked people wanted to take away from good ones.”
A sudden thought dawned upon me. “Is that the reason why you sparrows are so cruel to the birds who come into the city from the country?”
“Yes, it’s a question of food shortage. There isn’t enough to go round. If there were, it would be equal rights. I don’t hate wild birds. I have many friends among them, and I never drive them away if there is enough for their little ones and mine, but if there is only a sufficient supply for little sparrowkins, I fear I am a bad, hard, father bird.”
“Do you ever kill them?” I asked fearfully.
“Never,” he said decidedly. “I take their nests, and sometimes when they are very obstinate, I beat them.”
“I don’t know what to think,” I said in a puzzled voice. “You seem a sensible bird, yet I don’t like the thought of your beating dear little wild birds.”
He swelled his little self all up till his feathers stood out round him like a balloon. Then he said with a burst of eloquence, “How can you understand, you caged bird, with your table always set? Imagine yourself in the street, no friends, no food, a cold wind blowing,four or five hungry nestlings with their tiny beaks open and nothing to put in them; your poor little mate hovering over them trying to keep them warm so they will be less hungry. Wouldn’t you steal or beat to satisfy those cries?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know!” I said. “I never was in such a position. I am only a young bird. There has always been enough good food for us all in the bird-room. I don’t think I could hurt another bird to save my own young ones, but I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t know,” said Chummy bluntly. “You never do know what you’ll do till you run up against some dreadful trouble; but I tell you, Dicky, I’ve made up my mind never to beat another wild bird. I’ll move away first.”
“That’s right, Chummy,” I said. “Those words have a nice sound.”
“The bird question is a queer question,” said Chummy. “I’ve heard old, old sparrows talk about it. They said that birds and beasts when left to themselves keep what is called the balance of nature, but when man comes in, he begins to make gardens and orchards, and plantsstrange things and shoots wolves and foxes and bears and deer and birds, and brings into the country odd foreign insects-—”
“Why, Chummy,” I said, “how can he do that?”
“They come on grain and plants he gets from lands over the sea. Now, if he shoots the birds, they can’t eat the insects, so his grain suffers.”
“Well,” I said, “I understand that, but I don’t understand why he should not shoot wild beasts like wolves and foxes.”
“I don’t say that he shouldn’t, I merely say he does it, and suffers for it, because those animals kill little animals like mice and hares and squirrels which get into his crop. I’m trying to explain to you, Dicky, that man is great and wonderful, but very upsetting. Now, he is talking of wiping out sparrows and I say, ‘Don’t wipe out any creatures. Keep them down.’”
“Now I understand,” I said, “and I suppose you would say, ‘Don’t even put an end to cats, for they do some good.’”
“Certainly—I do hate them. I wish Black Thomas, the boarding-house cat, would dropdead this minute, but, Dicky, there’s no use in denying that a cat is the best rat-trap in the world. Down town where my Jennie’s parents live in the roof of the old station, they had lots of rats, and the station hands started to poison them. A little darling boy traveling with his mother fished a piece of rat biscuit out of a hole in the corner when his mother’s back was turned, ate it, and nearly died. The station master was in a fury, and made the men gather up all the rat biscuit which kills the animals in a very cruel way, and go out and buy some nice, wise cats. Jennie says another bad thing happened which the station master didn’t know. A lady traveling with a little pet dog, one of those Mexican Chihuahua dogs, so small that they stand on your hand, had it run from her and get into a hole in the flooring. She was days looking for it, and one of the men found it in a cruel rat-trap, one that catches the poor beast by the paw. The little dog was dead. Its tiny velvet foot was all broken, and the lady cried herself ill.”
“Chummy,” I said, “this is all very sad. I’m going to change the subject with your permission,and tell you that I’m glad I met you and I like to hear you talk.”
“I like you too,” he said with feeling, “and I think we shall become great cronies.”
“You express yourself so nicely,” I said, “not at all in a common way.”
He drew his little self up proudly. “We Varsity sparrows are supposed to be the brainiest in the city. We listen to the students’ talk and especially to the professors and learn to express ourselves properly. Hardly a sparrow in this neighborhood uses slang, but you just ought to hear the birds down in St. John’s ward. Their vulgar expressions are most reprehensible, and they all talk with their beaks shut tight. They sound like human beings who talk through their noses. You’ll see some of them some day. They come up here, but we drive them away pretty quickly.”
“That reminds me,” I said, “am I safe to fly in and out of the house here, and to go about this street a bit? I have told you that I am accustomed to much liberty, and I should like to learn something about this big, wonderful out-of-doors.”
“I’ll answer for the sparrows,” he said, “I’ll pass the word round that no one is to molest you, and I’ll tell Slow-Boy the pigeon to warn all his set. The crows won’t bother you, for they rarely come here, and when they do, it is very early in the morning before a bird of your luxurious habits would be up.”
“If one should challenge me, what should I say?” I asked anxiously. “I suppose you have a password.”
“Yes, say ‘Varsity’; that will protect you.”
“What about the robins and the small wild birds that nest in city gardens?” I asked. “They have mostly frightened eyes, but they can fight. I have heard this from the old birds.”
“The robins won’t be here for a while yet,” said Chummy, “and when they come, I’ll speak to their head bird, Vox Clamanti.”
“Thank you a thousand times,” I exclaimed. “I’m just crazy to travel all about this neighborhood. It’s grand to have a powerful friend. I shall sing a nice little song about you to Mrs. Martin to-night.”
Chummy did not reply. He was looking at the red sun which was just beginning to hidebehind the huge white milk bottle up in the sky, which is an advertisement on the top of an enormous dairy building on the street next to ours.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ll have to go look for something to eat before it gets dark. I see the neighbors are putting out their trash cans.”
I’LL give you something,” I said, “if you’ll come into my house with me.”
He gave me a long, searching look, then he said, “I’ll trust you, but how shall I get in, and if I get in, what about that meek looking dog who is nevertheless a dog?”
“Oh, Billie Sundae would not hurt any guest of mine,” I said, “and the window is always open a crack in the afternoon to air the sitting room, because no one sits there till evening.”
“Is Mrs. Martin not at home?” he asked.
I glanced at the big yellow boarding-house set away back from the street next Chummy’s house and said, “At half past four she is going in there to have tea with a friend.”
“What do you offer me for afternoon tea?” asked Chummy.
I was rather taken aback, for this questiondid not seem a very polite one to me. However, I reflected that he had had a street upbringing, and could not be expected to observe fine points of etiquette, such as not asking your host what he is going to set before you.
“Your question is very businesslike,” I said gaily, but with a thought of giving him just a gentle dig, “and I may say that there will be first of all a few crumbs of sponge cake.”
“That’s nice,” he said, clacking his horny beak with satisfaction.
“Then a nice little nibble of fresh, rosy-faced apple.”
“Fine!” he exclaimed. “It’s very hard for sparrows to get fresh fruit this weather.”
“Then I have a small bit of hard boiled egg left from breakfast,” I said.
“Egg!” he almost screamed, “and they at a dollar a dozen.”
I was slightly surprised that he mentioned the price of eggs. However, I went on, “The Martins always have the best of food, even if they have to save on clothes. Don’t you see how shabby Mrs. Martin and our Mary look?”
“The flowers in Mrs. Martin’s hat are pretty,” said the sparrow, “but they look as ifthey had been rained on. Now what comes after the egg?”
I was just a little put out at this question, and I said, “A nice drink of cold water.”
“Of course I can always get that outside,” he said.
“When everything is frozen?”
“There’s always Lake Ontario,” he said, “that doesn’t freeze over.”
I was afraid he would think I was impolite, and no matter how abrupt he was with me, I as entertainer should be courteous to him. So I said, “The greatest treat comes last. I’ve noticed you from the window several times, and I have been sorry to see your worried look, and I felt we should become acquainted, so I saved you a nice lot of hemp seed.”
“You saved seeds for me,” he exclaimed.
“Certainly, why not?”
“Why, I never had anyone do that for me before,” he said, “except my parents.”
“I do it to please myself,” I said. “If I could tell you how I love to see all birds safe and happy and with their crops sticking out.”
“Your talk has a good sound,” he said gravely. “I wish Squirrie could hear you.He says, ‘Birds, if my tummy is full and comfy, I don’t care if yours is shrunk all to wrinkles.’”
“Ha! ha! ha!” cried a wicked little voice, and I nearly fell head foremost out of the hole in the wall. As Chummy and I talked, we had gradually edged forward to his front door, and looking up we saw that impudent red squirrel hanging over the roof edge, listening to us.
Chummy was so angry, that he made a wild dart up to the roof, and gave a savage peck at Squirrie’s eyes. Of no use, the little rogue had scampered in again.
Chummy and I flew to the top of the front porch, and sat breathing hard and fast.
Mrs. Martin opened the door of our house and came out. I gazed down at the beloved brown figure and uttered a glad, “Peep!”
She whistled back to me, “Dear O! Cheer O!” then looking up, she said “Eh! making friends. Tell your sparrow bird that I bought some rice for him to-day, and I think he will like it better than the bread crumbs I have been putting out on the food table lately.”
The grateful Chummy leaned forward, gave his tail a joyous flirt, and said “T-check! chook! chook!”
“I’ll throw some right here for him in the morning,” said Missie, and she pointed to the hard-packed snow under the library window. “There’s such a crowd round the food table.”
Chummy gave a loud, joyful call. He was sure of a good tea to-night and a fine breakfast in the morning, and what more could a sparrow ask than two meals in advance?
“If she had feathers, she would be a very beautiful bird,” he said, as we watched her going toward the boarding-house, “and that is more than you can say of some of the women that go up and down this street.”
“What a sad looking boarding-house that is,” I said as we watched her going toward it. “Those black streaks up and down its yellow walls look as if it had been crying.”
Chummy was staring through the big drawing-room window that had fine yellow silk curtains.
“Just look at those women in there,” he said, “they have a nice fire, a white table and a maid bringing in hot muffins and cake and lovely thin slices of bread and butter to say nothing of the big silver tea-pot and the cream jug, and awhole bowl of sugar. I wish I had some of it, and they sit and stuff themselves, and never throw us any of it, and when summer comes they wouldn’t have a rose if we didn’t pick the plant lice off their bushes.”
“Come, come,” I said, “you are too hard on those nice ladies who are all working for the soldiers, and must have good food to sustain them. I am sure they don’t realize what birds do for them. If they did, they would not wear us on their hats.”
“Human beings would all die if it weren’t for us birds,” said the sparrow. “Poisons and sprays are all very fine to kill insect pests, but there’s nothing like the bill of a bird.”
“Mrs. Martin says that farmers are beginning to find that out,” I replied, “and are making wise laws to protect birds. Women don’t understand, except a few like our Mary and her mother.”
The sparrow sighed. “I suppose you have heard that half the wild birds are dying this winter. The crows say that little brown and gray and blue bodies are scattered all over the snow.”
“Even though the ground is snowy,” I said, “couldn’t they still get the larvae of insects on the branches?”
“The branches are ice glazed. The other day when the city people were saying how beautiful and how like fairyland everything looked here, the birds were staring in dismay at their food supply all locked up.”
“The farmers should have put out grain for them,” I said.
“They do in some places, but birds will never be properly looked after till the Government does it. They are servants to the public, and the public ought to protect them—but I am forgetting my afternoon tea. Shall we go in?”
“Yes, yes,” I said hastily, and I flew before him to the window.
Chummy stayed on the sill while I spoke to Billie who was lying on the hearthrug before the fire.
“Allow me to introduce my friend Chummy Hole-In-The-Wall,” I said. “He is going to make the neighborhood safe for me,” I added pointedly, for Billie dislikes strangers.
She wagged her tail slightly, very slightly,and lay down again, as if to say, “Have any friend in you like, but don’t bore me.”
Chummy is a very sensible bird. He did not fuss and fidget about coming into a house, and say that he was afraid something might hurt him. He merely said, “This is a very unusual thing for a sparrow to do, and a number of my friends outside are wondering why I came in. However, I am very hungry and I trust you. But of course you understand, you will be held responsible for my safety.”
I smiled. I knew what he meant. A number of bright-eyed sparrows had been watching me as I talked to him. If anything happened to him in this room, Green-Top’s beatings would be nothing compared to the one they would give me.
“You are as safe here as in your hole in the wall,” I said earnestly. “Now do come into my cage. You can’t reach the things very well from the outside.”
He went right in, and it did me good to see him eat. After he had stuffed himself, he said, “If I could tell you how sweet these seeds taste, and how delicious it is to get a bit of gravel. There isn’t an inch of ground visible in thiswhole city. Snow feet deep—never was anything like it before. Nearly every sparrow has indigestion from sloppy, wet, or frozen food, and no gravel to grind it.”
“Be thankful you are not a European bird,” I said. “They have had perfectly dreadful times of suffering over there.”
“Have you heard the story about the little British canary that was killed during the war by one of its own guns?” asked Chummy.
“No,” I said, “I haven’t.”
“Well,” he replied, “you know when the Allies mined under the enemy’s line, they carried canaries in cages with them so that if there was any fire damp in the big holes they made, they could tell by the canaries’ actions. Well, one little war bird flew away from his task. He evidently was an idle bird, and did not wish to work. He perched on a small bush in the middle of No Man’s Land and began to sing, ‘I won’t work, I won’t work. I want to play.’
“The Allied soldiers were in a terrible fright. If their enemies saw the canary, they would know they were mining, and would send shells at them and kill them all. So the Allied men signaled to their infantry to fire on the bird.They did so, but he was so small a target that they could not strike him, and he hopped from twig to twig unhurt. Finally they had to call on the artillery, and a big trench gun sent a shell that blew birdie and his bush into the air.”
“What a pity!” I said sadly. “If he had done his duty and stayed with the workers, he might be yet alive. I can tell you a cat war story, if you like.”
“What is it?” asked Chummy.
“The tale of a cat and her kittens. One day the Allied soldiers saw a cat come across No Man’s Land. She walked as evenly as Black Thomas does when he is taking an airing on this quiet street. No one fired at her, and she crossed the first line of trenches, the support behind them, and went back to the officers’ dugouts. She inspected all of them, then she returned across this dangerous land to the enemy’s lines. The trenches were pretty close together, and the men all roared with amusement, for on this trip she had a tiny kitten in her mouth.
“She carried it back to the best-looking dugout, and laid it on an officer’s coat. Then she went back and got a second kitten, and then athird. The soldiers cheered her, and no one thought of harming her. Mrs. Martin’s nephew wrote her this nice story, and he said that the mother cat and her three kittens were the idols of the soldiers and always wore pink ribbons on their necks. They called them Ginger, Shrapnel, and Surprise Party.”
“What a good story,” said the sparrow thickly.
His beak was full of sponge cake, and, seeing it, I said warmly, “Oh, Chummy dear, if I could only feed all the poor hungry birds as I am feeding you, how happy should I be!”
AFTER this first day of our meeting, Chummy called on me very often. In fact, he would fly in whenever he saw the window open, for he knew Billie was an honest dog and would not chase him.
The lovely thaw did not last long, and we had some more very cold weather. I did not go out-of-doors very often, and was quite glad to get the outside news from my sparrow friend.
Billie grumbled a little bit about him. “That fellow is throwing dust in your eyes,” she said to me one day during the last of February.
I smiled at her. “And do you think that I think that Chummy comes here merely for the pleasure of looking into my bright eyes?”
Billie began to mumble something under her breath about greedy birds, and emptying my seed dish.
“Dear Billie,” I went on, “don’t plunge that little white muzzle of yours too deeply into bird affairs. You would find them as strangely mixed as are dog matters. When you fawn on Mrs. Martin as she comes from town, is the fawning pure love or just a little bit of hope that in her muff is hidden some dainty for Billie?”
“I love Mrs. Martin,” said Billie stubbornly. “You know I do. I would live with her if she fed me on crusts.”
“Of course you would,” I said soothingly, “but do you know, it seems to me a strange thing that you, a dog bred in poverty and having to toil painfully in looking for your food, should be harder on another toiler than I am, I a bird that was bred in the lap of luxury.”
Billie looked rather sheepish, and I said, “You have a kind heart, and I wish you would not be so stiff with the sparrow. Won’t you do something to amuse him some time when he comes?”
“Yes, I will,” she said. “I think perhaps I have not been very polite to him. Indeed, I do know how hard it is for birds and beasts to get a living out of this cold world.”
“Hush,” I said; “here he comes,” and sure enough there was Chummy sitting on the window sill, twitching his tail, and saying, “How are you, Dicky-Dick? It’s a bitterly cold day—sharpens one’s appetite like a knife.”
I flew to meet him and said, “Come right over to my cage and help yourself to seeds. Missie filled my dish before she went out.”
Chummy looked pleased, but he said, “I hope your Missie doesn’t mind feeding me as well as you.”
“Oh, no, she doesn’t care,” I said, “even though bird seed is dear now. She has a heart as big as a cabbage and she is sorry for all suffering things. She says she has been hungry once or twice in her own life, and she knows the dreadful feeling of an empty stomach.”
“Well, I’ll eat to her health,” said Chummy, and he stepped right into my cage and poked his dusky beak into a tiny dish of bread and milk.
“What’s the news of the neighborhood?” I asked.
“Squirrie came out for five minutes this morning,” he said, “just to let us know he wasn’t dead. He ate a few nuts and threw the shells down at Black Thomas.”
“I know Thomas,” I said; “jet black, white spot on breast, yellow eyes, fierce, proud temper.”
“He’s a case,” said Chummy, “and he vows he’ll have Squirrie’s life yet.”
“Anything else happened?” I asked.
“Oh, yes—two strange pigeons, dusky brown, have been in the neighborhood all the morning, looking for a nesting place, and Susan and Slow-Boy have worn themselves out driving them away.”
Billie rarely opened her mouth when Chummy called. She lay dozing, or pretending to doze, by the fire; but to-day she spoke up and said, “Who are Susan and Slow-Boy?”
I waited politely for Chummy to speak, but his beak was too full, so I answered for him.
“They are the two oldest neighborhood pigeons, and they live in the old barn back of our yard. They are very particular about any pigeon that settles near here; still, if the strangers are agreeable they might let them have that ledge outside the barn.”
“They’re not agreeable,” said Chummy. “Their feathers are in miserable condition. They haven’t taken good care of them, andSlow-Boy says he knows by the look of them they have vermin.”
“Lice!” exclaimed Billie suddenly. “That is dreadful. Some of the Italians where I used to live had pigeons that scratched themselves all the time. It was sad to hear them at night. They could not sleep. They would all rise up together on their perches and shake themselves.”
Chummy took a drink from my water dish in which was a rusty nail to give me a little iron for my blood, then he said, “We’re clean birds in this neighborhood. Varsity birds hate lice, so I think Slow-Boy and Susan were quite right to drive these strangers away—what do you think, Dicky-Dick?”
I sighed quite heavily, for such a small bird as I am. Then I said, “It is true, though it oughtn’t to be, that clean birds instead of taking dirty birds in hand and trying to do them good, usually drive them away. It seems the easiest way.”
Chummy was wiping his beak hard on one of my perches. “Your Missie certainly knows where to buy her seeds. These are remarkably fresh and crisp.”
“She always goes to wholesale houses,” I said, “and watches the man to see that he takes the seeds out of a bag or big box. Some women buy their seeds in packages which perhaps have been standing on the grocer’s shelf for months.”
“You look a well-nourished bird,” said Chummy. “My Jennie is very particular with our young ones, and we have the finest-looking ones in the neighborhood. If she is giving a brown-tail moth larva, for example, she hammers it well before she puts it in the baby beaks. Some sparrows are so careless, and thrust food to their young ones that is only partly prepared.”
I said nothing, for I had not yet seen any of Chummy’s young ones, and he came out of the cage and, settling down on the top of it, began to clean his feathers and pick little bits of dead flesh off his skin.
“Billie,” I said, “it’s early in the afternoon and you’ve had your first nap; can’t you amuse our caller by telling him about your early life? He said the other day he’d like to hear it.”
Billie rose and stretched herself. She knew that I knew she would like to do something forChummy because she had spoken harshly about him.
Chummy spoke up, “I like you, Billie, for I notice you never chase birds as some of the neighborhood dogs do.”
Billie hung her head. “I know too well what it feels like to be chased,” she said.
“You can’t see us up here on the wall very well, Billie,” I said. “You would have to stretch your neck to look up at us. Suppose we fly down, Chummy.”
“All right,” he said agreeably, so we flew to a pot of hyacinths on the table and crouched down with our feet on the nice warm earth and our breasts against the rim of the pot.
Billie jumped up in a big chair by the table to be near us, and began, “First of all, you mustn’t interrupt. It puts me out.”
“All right,” said the sparrow, “but what a spoiled dog you are! I don’t know another one in the neighborhood that is allowed to sit in any chair he or she chooses.”
Billie hung her head again, and I gave the sparrow a nudge. “Do be quiet. She’s sensitive on that subject.”
“It’s on account of my early training,” saidBillie at last. “There was nothing sacred to the poor people I was with. A bed or a chair was no better than the floor and I can’t get over that feeling. I have been whipped and whipped and reasoned with, but it’s of no use. I can’t remember.”
“It’s just like birds,” said the sparrow cheerfully. “What’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh. If I indulge a youngster and let him take the best place in the nest, I can’t get him out of it when he’s older.”
“Begin, Billie,” I said, “we’re waiting, and, Chummy, don’t interrupt again. It’s quite a long story, and the afternoon is going, and Missie will soon be home.”
WELL,” said Billie, “my name used to be Tina when I was a puppy, and the first thing I can remember is a kick that landed me in the middle of the floor.
“I must have had many kicks before, and I had many after, but I remember that one because I was too small and short-legged to climb back into bed. I had to spend the night on the floor, and as it was winter the occurrence was stamped on my puppy brain.
“I slept with some Italian children who belonged to a man called Antonio and his wife, Angelina. They lived in a tiny house in the Bronx neighborhood in New York. They were rather kind people in their way, except when they flew in a rage. Then the woman would chase me with her broom and the man would kick me. I am rather a stupid little dog, andtimid too, and I used to get in their way.
“The children mauled me, but I liked them, for whenever they tumbled down to sleep anywhere, whether it was on the floor or on their queer, rickety bed heaped high with old clothes and torn blankets, I was allowed to snuggle up to them and keep warm.
“Antonio, the father of the family, used to get his living by digging drains in the new roads they were making about New York, and when he came home at night, he would feel my sides, and if I seemed very hollow, he would say to his wife, ‘A bit of bread for the creature,’ and if I seemed fat, he would say, ‘She needs nothing. Give the food to the little ones.’
“You can imagine that this treatment made me get my own living. I had to spend a great deal of time every day in running from one back yard to another, to see if I could pick up scraps from the old boxes and barrels in which the Italians in the neighborhood used to put their rubbish, for they did not have nice shiny trash cans, like rich people.
“Other dogs got their living in the same way I did, and as I am no fighter, I had to work pretty hard to get enough to eat.
“The way I managed was to rise very early in the morning, before the other dogs were let loose. Nearly all the poor people in the neighborhood had gardens or milk farms, or chickens, or pigeons, and they kept dogs to frighten thieves away. These poor animals were chained all night long to miserable kennels and they made a great noise barking and howling, but the more noise they made, the better pleased were their owners.
“When I heard them on cold winter nights, I used to cuddle down all the closer in bed beside the children, and thank my lucky stars that I was not fastened outside.
“My Italians tried to keep chickens, but they always died. The woman was too ignorant to know that if you wish to have healthy, wholesome fowls, that will lay well, you must feed them good food and keep them clean. I used to bark at her when she stood looking at her sick chickens, but she did not understand my language. ‘Woman,’ I was trying to say, ‘pretend that your chickens are children. Your little ones are fat and healthy because you feed them well, keep them out of doors, and have them fairly clean.’
“As time went on my Italians became poorer. Antonio was out of work for a time, and lounged about the house and became very sulky. Sometimes he would go to a near-by café for a drink, and I usually followed him, for some of the men when they saw me skulking about and looking hungry, would be sure to throw me bits of cheese or salt fish, or ends of sandwiches with salty stuff inside that made me run to the Bronx River to get a drink.
“One unhappy day, when I had had enough to eat and was crouching close to the hot-water pipes in a corner, a rough-looking man who acted very sleepy and was talking very queerly asked Antonio how much he would take for me.
“He said one dollar.
“‘She’s only a cur,’ said the other man. ‘I’ll give you fifty cents.’
“To my great dismay, my master held out his hand for the money, a rope was tied round my neck, and I was led away in an opposite direction from my home.
“In vain I pulled back and squealed. The man only laughed and dragged me along more quickly.
“He could not walk very straight, but after a while we arrived in front of a nice, neat-looking house, and a kind-faced woman opened the door for us.
“She was a dressmaker, and she had the sleeve of a woman’s dress in her hand. She gave me a quick, pleasant look, but she became very sad when she saw the mud on her husband’s clothes where he had splashed through puddles of dirty water.
“It seems she had long wanted a dog to bear her company while her husband was away from home. So she was very pleased to see me, and threw an old coat in a corner of the kitchen for me to lie on, and gave me a beef bone to gnaw.
“I was delighted to get a good meal, and a quiet bed, for as I told you the children used to kick me a good deal in their sleep. However, I was not happy in this new place.
“I was surprised at myself. This was a much nicer house than the Italian’s, but I didn’t care for that. I wanted my own home.
“There was a sleek, gray cat with dark eyes in the house, and the next day I had a talk with her.
“‘You are uneasy,’ she said, ‘because thisisn’t your very own home. Dogs are very faithful. You miss the children and that man and his wife, though by the look of you they were not very good to you.’
“Of course I had not said anything to this cat against my family. I knew they were not perfect, but something told me it would not be right to discuss my own family with strangers.
“‘Your coat is very grimy and dirty,’ she said. ‘You look as if you had not been washed for a long time. Have you?’
“I hesitated, for to tell the truth I remembered no washings except the ones my poor little spotted mother had given me with her tongue when I was a puppy. Only the rain and the snow had cleansed me since then. At last I said, ‘Water was scarce with us. It had to be carried from a pump.’
“‘Missis is very clean,’ she said; ‘she will likely give you a bath first thing.’
“Missis did wash me that very day. First she spread a lot of newspapers on the kitchen floor. Then she set a tub on them and filled it half full of warm water. I was ordered to step into the tub, which I did very gingerly, andthen the dressmaker sopped me all over with a cloth covered with carbolic acid soapsuds.
“I must confess that although I liked the idea of being clean and getting rid of some of my fleas, the bath was a sad ordeal. I thought I should scream when the dressmaker wrapped an end of the towel round her finger and poked it inside my ears. Persons should be very careful how they wash dogs’ ears. However, she was pretty gentle, and I merely groaned and did not howl or yell, as I wished to do. Finally she poured lukewarm rinsing water over me, and my bath was done. She wrapped me in a blanket and put me under the kitchen stove. I felt terribly for a while. My wet hair was torture to me, but presently I began to get warm, my hair dried, and I became quite happy.
“Was it possible that I, a little neglected dog, was lying clean and dry under a nice hot stove, and with a comfortable feeling inside me, and not my usual ache for good food?
“I licked one of my paws sticking out from under the blanket, a paw that looked so strangely white and clean, and I said to myself, ‘I must always stay with this good woman.’
“Alas! the very next day such a sick, dreadfulfeeling came over me, that I told the cat I must run away.
“‘You are a simpleton,’ she said crossly. ‘You don’t know when you are well off. Could anything be nicer than this quiet house—the master gone all day and so stupid and staggering when he comes home that he gives no trouble?’
“I said nothing, and she went on, ‘And mistress sewing so quietly and giving us regular meals. Then if you wish to take a walk we have a nice back yard with a fence all round it, and no other yard near us and if you wish to go further than that, we have that fine large field where they dump the ashes from the next town. I tell you, the place is ideal.’
“‘I know all that,’ I said, ‘but I wasn’t brought up here, and I want the neighbors’ dogs and the children, and I’ve never been used to cat society.’
“‘You listen to a word of advice from me,’ she said, ‘and don’t take too much stock in people or animals. They move away, but nice, quiet yards and dump heaps go on forever.’
“‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got to run for it. I’m just wild inside.’
“‘Well, make sure of one good meal before you leave,’ she said scornfully. ‘Mistress is cooking liver and bacon and liver is very good for dogs.’
“‘Thank you for all your kindness to me,’ I said. ‘I suppose you think I am a very stupid dog.’
“‘I’ve not done much for you,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind showing a few favors to a friend, if it doesn’t put me out.’
“I stared at her. I had several times obliged her by barking at strange cats and this had cost me quite an effort, for I was dreadfully afraid they would turn and spit at me, or scratch my eyes out. However, I said nothing. You can’t reason with cats. They’re very pig-headed.
“Presently she asked me how I felt about cheating our good, kind mistress out of fifty cents, ‘for that is what you told me master paid for you,’ she said.
“‘I feel badly about that,’ I replied. ‘Indeed, I may say that it grieves me.’
“‘I’ll tell you where you can get fifty cents,’ she said cunningly.
“‘Where?’ I asked eagerly.
“‘Why, last night when master went out tothe road to get a paper, he fumbled in his pocket for a penny and brought out a handful of change. One piece dropped on the ground. I can show you where it lies.’
“‘Why didn’t you pick it up?’ I asked.
“‘Why bother with money, when it’s no good to you?’ she said. ‘It’s dirty stuff, anyway, and covered with germs.’
“‘I’m not afraid of it,’ I said joyfully, and I ran and got the fifty-cent piece and laid it at mistress’ feet. She took it and looked at me, then she patted me and hugged me, a thing she had not done before.
“‘Doggie, you are a comfort to me,’ she said. ‘I hope you will stay with me always.’
“I stood on my hind legs. I pawed the air and squealed. I tried to tell her that I would like to stay, but that I could not resist the thing inside me that was pulling like a string toward my old home.
“I ran away that night—ran sadly and with shame. I was about two miles from my old home, and it was no trouble at all for me to find it.
“When I got there, I scratched at the doorand the Italian woman opened it and gave a squeal when she saw me. The children had not gone to sleep, and I gave a leap past her and into the bed with them.
“Oh, how glad they were to see me! I jumped and squealed and licked them, and they petted me and hugged me, and the mother stood over us laughing to see her children well pleased.
“Wasn’t I delighted that I had come home! I settled down among them for a good night’s sleep, and I thought, ‘Now we are going to be happy ever after’—but dogs never know what is going to happen to them.
“Just when I was having a lovely dream about my friend the cat, in which she was changed into a nice, sensible dog, I felt a fierce grip on my neck, and, giving a scream, I jumped up.
“The Italian man stood over me, his face as black as a thundercloud. He had got work by this time—work outside, for Italians hate to be employed inside a building. He was a train hand now and he got good wages, but he was not willing to keep me.
“One hand dragged me out of bed, and the other shook a fist at me. ‘You, you animal,’ he said, ‘I’m going to take you away. If you come back, I shoot,’ and he took hold of the old gun standing in a corner of the room and shook it at me. ‘You saw me shoot a cat one day,’ he went on. ‘Well, I kill you if you come back. Hear that?’ Then he kicked me out of doors.
“I did not run away. I sat on a heap of ashes at a little distance, staring at the house. There I remained all night. I was confused and unhappy and stupid. I did not know what to do. I knew I could never live with the children again, but something just chained me to the spot.
“I sat there all the next morning. The children were afraid to play with me, for their father was sleeping inside the house, but they threw me some crusts. I was very thirsty, but I did not dare to go near the house, and something kept me from losing sight of it, so I did not run to the river to get a drink.
“At dusk the man came out of the house and, catching sight of me, he yelled for me to go to him. I went inch by inch, and crawling on my stomach. He took a string out of his pocket,tied it round my neck, and set off walking toward the railway.
“I gave one last look over my shoulder at the cottage, and the children. They were crying, poor little souls, and their mother had her arms round them.
“The man made me trot pretty fast after him. He did not know and would not have cared if he had known that my thirst was getting more and more painful, and that I was almost choked to death with fear. For we were approaching the railway tracks and all my life long I had been frightened to death of noises, especially train noises.
“Suddenly a suspicion struck me that he might be going to throw me under the wheels of a train. Half mad with fear, I gave a violent leap away from him, dragging the cord from his hand, and then I ran, ran like a creature bereft of its senses, for my flying feet took me right toward the trains, instead of away from them.