ANOTHER CALL FROM CHUMMY
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, and Slow-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 for Chummy 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,” said Billie 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.”