Johnny and Polly Chuck had made their home between the roots of an old
apple-tree in the far corner of the Old Orchard. You know they have
their bedroom way down in the ground, and it is reached by a long hall.
They had dug their home between the roots of that old apple-tree because
they had discovered that there was just room enough between those
spreading roots for them to pass in and out, and there wasn't room to
dig the entrance any larger. So they felt quite safe from Reddy Fox; and
Bowser the Hound, either of whom would have delighted to dig them out
but for those roots.
Right in front of their doorway was a very nice doorstep of shining
sand where Johnny Chuck delighted to sit when he had a full stomach and
nothing else to do. Johnny's nearest neighbors had made their home only
about five feet above Johnny's head when he sat up on his doorstep. They
were Skimmer the Tree Swallow and his trim little wife, and the doorway
of their home was a little round hole in the trunk of that apple-tree, a
hole which had been cut some years before by one of the Woodpeckers.
Johnny and Skimmer were the best of friends. Johnny used to delight in
watching Skimmer dart out from beneath the branches of the trees and
wheel and turn and glide, now sometimes high in the blue, blue sky, and
again just skimming the tops of the grass, on wings which seemed never
to tire. But he liked still better the bits of gossip when Skimmer would
sit in his doorway and chat about his neighbors of the Old Orchard and
his adventures out in the Great World during his long journeys to and
from the far-away South.
To Johnny Chuck's way of thinking, there was no one quite so trim and
neat appearing as Skimmer with his snowy white breast and blue-green
back and wings. Two things Johnny always used to wonder at, Skimmer's
small bill and short legs. Finally he ventured to ask Skimmer about
them.
“Gracious, Johnny!” exclaimed Skimmer. “I wouldn't have a big bill for
anything. I wouldn't know what to do with it; it would be in the
way. You see, I get nearly all my food in the air when I am flying,
mosquitoes and flies and all sorts of small insects with wings. I don't
have to pick them off trees and bushes or from the ground and so I don't
need any more of a bill than I have. It's the same way with my legs.
Have you ever seen me walking on the ground?”
Johnny thought a moment. “No,” said he, “now you speak of it, I never
have.”
“And have you ever seen me hopping about in the branches of a tree?”
persisted Skimmer.
Again Johnny Chuck admitted that he never had.
“The only use I have for feet,” continued Skimmer, “is for perching
while I rest. I don't need long legs for walking or hopping about, so
Mother Nature has made my legs very short. You see I spend most of my
time in the air.”
“I suppose it's the same with your cousin; Sooty the Chimney Swallow,”
said Johnny.
“That shows just how much some people know!” twittered Skimmer
indignantly. “The idea of calling Sooty a Swallow! The very idea! I'd
leave you to know, Johnny Chuck, that Sooty isn't even related to me.
He's a Swift, and not a Swallow.”
“He looks like a Swallow,” protested Johnny Chuck.
“He doesn't either. You just think he does because he happens to spend
most of his time in the air the way we Swallows do,” sputtered Skimmer.
“The Swallow family never would admit such a homely looking fellow as he
is as a member.
“Tut, tut, tut, tut! I do believe Skimmer is jealous,” cried Jenny Wren,
who had happened along just in time to hear Skimmer's last remarks.
“Nothing of the sort,” declared Skimmer, growing still more indignant.
“I'd like to know what there is about Sooty the Chimney Swift that could
possibly make a Swallow jealous.”
Jenny Wren cocked her tail up in that saucy way of hers and winked at
Johnny Chuck. “The way he can fly,” said she softly.
“The way he can fly!” sputtered Skimmer, “The way he can fly! Why, there
never was a day in his life that he could fly like a Swallow. There
isn't any one more graceful on the wing than I am, if I do say so. And
there isn't any one more ungraceful than Sooty.”
Just then there was a shrill chatter overhead and all looked up to see
Sooty the Chimney Swift racing through the sky as if having the very
best time in the world. His wings would beat furiously and then he would
glide very much as you or I would on skates. It was quite true that he
wasn't graceful. But he could twist and turn and cut up all sorts of
antics, such as Skimmer never dreamed of doing.
“He can use first one wing and then the other, while you have to use
both wings at once,” persisted Jenny Wren. “You couldn't, to save your
life, go straight down into a chimney, and you know it, Skimmer. He can
do things with his wings which you can't do, nor any other bird.”
“That may be true, but just the same I'm not the least teeny weeny bit
jealous of him,” said Skimmer, and darted away to get beyond the reach
of Jenny's sharp tongue.
“Is it really true that he and Sooty are not related?” asked Johnny
Chuck, as they watched Skimmer cutting airy circles high up in the slay.
Jenny nodded. “It's quite true, Johnny,” said site. “Sooty belongs to
another family altogether. He's a funny fellow. Did you ever in your
life see such narrow wings? And his tail is hardly worth calling a
tail.”
Johnny Chuck laughed. “Way up there in the air he looks almost alike at
both ends,” said he. “Is he all black?”
“He isn't black at all,” declared Jenny. “He is sooty-brown, rather
grayish on the throat and breast. Speaking of that tail of his, the
feathers end in little, sharp, stiff points. He uses them in the same
way that Downy the Woodpecker uses his tail feathers when he braces
himself with them on the trunk of a tree.”
“But I've never seen Sooty on the trunk of a tree,” protested Johnny
Chuck. “In fact, I've never seen him anywhere but in the air.”
“And you never will,” snapped Jenny. “The only place he ever alights is
inside a chimney or inside a hollow tree. There he clings to the side
just as Downy the Woodpecker clings to the trunk of a tree.”
Johnny looked as if he didn't quite believe this. “If that's the case
where does he nest?” he demanded. “And where does he sleep?”
“In a chimney, stupid. In a chimney, of course,” retorted Jenny Wren.
“He fastens his nest right to the inside of a chimney. He makes a
regular little basket of twigs and fastens it to the side of the
chimney.”
“Are you trying to stuff me with nonsense?” asked Johnny Chuck
indignantly. “How can he fasten his nest to the side of a chimney unless
there's a little shelf to put it on? And if he never alights, how does
he get the little sticks to make a nest of? I'd just like to know how
you expect me to believe any such story as that.”
Jenny Wren's sharp little eyes snapped. “If you half used your eyes you
wouldn't have to ask me how he gets those little sticks,” she sputtered.
“If you had watched him when he was flying close to the tree tops you
would have seen him clutch little dead twigs in his claws and snap them
off without stopping. That's the way he gets his little sticks, Mr.
Smarty, He fastens them together with a sticky substance he has in his
mouth, and he fastens the nest to the side of the chimney in the same
way. You can believe it or not, but it's so.”
“I believe it, Jenny, I believe it,” replied Johnny Chuck very humbly.
“If you please, Jenny, does Sooty get all his food in the air too?”
“Of course,” replied Jenny tartly. “He eats nothing but insects, and he
catches them flying. Now I must get back to my duties at home.”
“Just tell me one more thing,” cried Johnny Chuck hastily. “Hasn't Sooty
any near relatives as most birds have?”
“He hasn't any one nearer than some sort of second cousins, Boomer the
Nighthawk, Whippoorwill, and Hummer the Hummingbird.”
“What?” cried Johnny Chuck, quite as if he couldn't believe he had heard
aright. “Did you say Hummer the Hummingbird?” But he got no reply, for
Jenny Wren was already beyond hearing.