A BIRD’S AFTERNOON TEA
“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 question did 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 if they 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 a whole 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 this whole 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 a
third. 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!”