THE BEGINNING OF MY FAMILY CARES
When he said, “I—love—you,” he rose still higher on his hoofs, blew
the ladies a kiss with one of his forefeet, and spoke in such a tender
kind of a voice that they just shrieked with laughter. Then he lost
his head more than Sammy-Sam had, and, gamboling on the green,
announced that he wished not money but souvenirs.
After a while he controlled himself and went soberly from one to
another and had pinned on his pony coat neckties, a bangle, a ring or
two, some purses and one lady put round one of his forefeet a handsome
string of beads which she took from her own neck.
The children bowed, kissed their hands, then trooped down the street
to tell our Mary, who had helped them dress, of the success of their
entertainment.
Chummy gazed affectionately after them.
“Good children,” he said. “We sparrows love them.”
“Let’s fly down to our house and hear what they say,” I proposed to
him.
“Hurrah!” said Chummy. “Of course I’ll go to see the most beautiful
birds on the street—the Martins’.”
Deeply pleased, I gave him an affectionate tap with my bill, and we
flew to the upper veranda railing, where Mrs. Martin was just bringing
out Billie and Niger to the sunshine.
She had been bathing them, and she handed our Mary a towel, and asked
her to finish drying their ears, for her back was most broken from
bending over the dogs’ bath tub.
“Oh, Mary! Mary!” called the children, and they all burst on the
veranda and exhibited their collections.
“Look at Billy,” I whispered to Chummy.
She was pressing close to Niger and was licking his sides dry before
she touched her own.
“And we were afraid she would be jealous of Niger,” said Chummy. “She
is a pretty good dog, after all.”
“We are all good,” I said happily, and, strange to say, just at that
moment Missie turned to Chummy.
“Sparrow bird,” she said, for she did not know my name of Chummy for
him, “sparrow bird, I am perfectly delighted at the attitude of your
family toward the wild birds that are coming back. I expect you to eat
very little food at my table in the garden this summer, but join with
the wild birds in killing many tussock moths—will you?” she added
smilingly.
Chummy understood her, and he tried so hard to tell her how grateful
he was to her for all her kindness to him and his family that he
actually croaked out a hoarse little song in which one could plainly
distinguish some of my notes.
Even the children noticed it, and he got a good round of applause, as
if he had been singing at a concert.
Mrs. Martin was looking at him so kindly, just as if she were his
mother. “Sparrow,” she said softly, “I think you try to be a good
bird, and that is all we human beings can do—just to be good and
kind,” and she looked away toward the big lake and sighed.
Our Mary was still talking to the children, while she rubbed the dogs’
ears, and Mrs. Martin turned again to Chummy.
“And, sparrow boy, don’t feel unhappy if I take all the eggs but one
out of your nest each time your little mate lays this summer. There
are too many sparrows in this neighborhood.”
“T-check, t-chack, dear lady,” said Chummy, scraping and bowing,
“whatever you do is right. We birds know you understand us, and love
us, and even if you take our young we will not complain. You never
call us rats of the air, or winged vermin, and I assure you we will be
kinder than ever after this to the little wild birds.”
“Come here, sparrow bird,” said Mrs. Martin gently, holding out her
hand to him.
“Go on, Chummy,” I said, giving him a push with my bill.
He had never lighted on her hand before, but he did so now, and stood
there looking very proud of himself.
“Sparrow,” said Mrs. Martin earnestly, “how I wish that I could tell
you just how I feel when I look at a bird. There is such a warm
feeling round my heart—I know that inside your little feathered
bodies are troubles very like our own. You have such anxieties, such
struggles, to protect yourselves from enemies. You are so patient, so
unresentful, so devoted—even to laying down your lives for your
young. You are little martyrs of the air.”
Chummy put his head on one side and said, “T-check, t-chack,” very
modestly.
“Mary,” said Mrs. Martin to her daughter, “a covenant between us and
this little bird, whose fall to the ground our Heavenly Father deigns
to notice. We will love, protect, and try to understand them
better—we will even thin their ranks if necessary, but we will never
persecute.”
Our Mary turned round. The western sun shone on her pretty young face,
and on the bright faces of the children beside her.
“Agreed,” she said sweetly. “The Martins for the sparrows.”
At that moment Anna came up to the veranda with a tray of tea and
bread and butter. On her shoulder was Sister Susie, coming out to get
a taste of the butter that she is just crazy about, for pigeons and
doves love salt things.
“Here is something to seal our sparrow bargain,” said our Mary, holding
out a scrap of bread to Chummy.
He fluttered to her, took it nicely, ate half, and saved the other
half for Jennie, who was sitting on her nest on three eggs which would
shortly be reduced to one.
“Chummy,” I said, as he came back to the railing where I sat. “This is
a pretty happy family, isn’t it?”
“Very,” he said thickly, on account of the bread in his beak.
“And a pretty happy street,” I went on. “All the birds and animals are
living nicely together.”
“Yes, yes,” he muttered.
“And Nella the monkey is frisking in the Zoo, and Squirrie is as
contented as he ever could be, and perhaps a time is coming when the
birds and animals all over the world will be as happy as we are on
this pleasant street. What do you think about it?”
Chummy laid down his bread on the railing and covered it with his
claw, lest I or Sister Susie might eat it in a moment of
absent-mindedness.
“What do I think?” he repeated slowly. “I think that birds and animals
will never be perfectly happy till all human beings are happy. We are
all mixed up together, Dicky-Dick, and I have heard that if all the
birds in the world were to die, human beings would die too.”
“How is that?” I asked.
“Because insects would devour all the plants and vegetables if there
were no birds to check them. Then human beings would starve to death.”
“Well, if that is so, Chummy,” I said, “why don’t men and women take
better care of birds, and not let them be killed so much?”
“Give me time to think that over,” said Chummy. “I will answer it some
other day. Just now I must take this bread to Jennie,” and he flew
away.
That was some days ago, and Chummy has not answered my question yet. I
can not wait for him to do so, for I must close my story. Summer days
will soon be upon us, and the first duty of a canary to the world is
to raise families and not concern himself too much with the affairs of
other creatures.
Then something wonderful happened yesterday—a little egg hatched out
in our nest. The whole world for me is swallowed up in that tiny beak.
Shall I ever get tired of looking in it? Shall I ever beat my own
little first baby bird, and say coldly, “Who are you?” as my father
Norfolk said to me?
“Yes, you will,” chirps my faithful Daisy; “but don’t worry about
that. It is the way of birds, and it makes us independent. Feed him
and love him while you can, and be good to everybody, everybody,
everybody,” and as I close my story she is chirping me a funny, jerky
little song to cheer me up, for she says Chummy is trying to make a
hard-working, worrying sparrow out of me, instead of a gay, cheerful
little canary.
“What is that I hear outside?” she said suddenly. “I don’t see why
birds sing so loudly when there are young ones in the nest.”
I listened an instant, then I exclaimed, “It’s Vox Clamanti, and he is
caroling, ‘Better times for birds, better times for birds, robins
’specially, robins ’specially!’”
“So he has got hold of it too,” said Daisy crossly; “he had better go
help poor Twitchtail look for worms—and you, Dicky-Dick, fly quickly
to the table and get some fresh egg food for your own baby. Our Mary
is just bringing some in—” and as I did not just fly on the instant,
she began to chirp in quick notes, “Feed your baby, feed your baby,
baby, baby!—that’s what you’re here for, here for, here for!”
THE END
Transcriber’s Note
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left
unchanged.
Unprinted letters and punctuation were added.
The following spelling changes were made:
‘limp’ to ‘limb’ … Cross-Patch trembling in every limb,…
‘titbits’ to ‘tidbits’ … Hester put little tidbits on my shelf …