With so many trees in the yard, it always seemed a little strange that
three families should choose to build so close together in one. Still,
it must also be remembered that there were many birds who liked to
build near the big house, and thought of that yard as home.
The Lady spoke of this tree as “The Evergreen Apartment House.” The
birds simply called it “The Tallest Fir Tree.”
Early in the spring a pair of English Sparrows decided to build there.
Perhaps one should say that Mrs. Sparrow decided, since her husband
had nothing to say about it, except to murmur “Yes, dear,” when she
told him of her choice. They built well up in the tree, and had a big
mass of hay, grass, and feathers together there when the Blackbirds
came. This would have more than made a nest for most birds. Mrs.
Sparrow called it only a beginning, and was always looking for more to
add to it.
When the Blackbirds came in a dashing flock, they began hunting for
building places and talking it all over among themselves. One mother
Blackbird, who had nested on the place the year before, had counted on
having that particular tree.
“I decided on it last fall,” said she, “before I went South, and I
have been planning for it all winter. I shall build in it just the
same.” She shut her bill in such a way that nobody could doubt her
meaning exactly what she said. Her husband didn’t like the place
particularly well, but she said something to him which settled it.
“You need not ruffle up your feathers for me,” she said, “or stand on
tip-toe to squeak at me, unless you are willing to live there.”
They built higher than the nest of the English Sparrows. “We have
always been well up in the world,” she said, “and we do not care to
come down now.” That was all right. One could not blame them for
feeling above the English Sparrows.
The English Sparrows had added more stuff to what they had, and the
Blackbirds had their nest about half done when a pair of Hairbirds
came to look for a comfortable tree. They were a young couple, just
married that spring, and very devoted to each other. They did not
decide matters in the same way as the English Sparrow, and the
Blackbirds.
Although there were eleven other great evergreens in the yard, besides
a number of trellises covered with vines, and all the vine-covered
porches, there was no place which suited them so well as that
particular tree. Yet each was so eager to please the other that it
was rather hard to get either to say what he really thought. They
perched on the tips of the fir branches and chattered and twittered
all morning about it.
“What do you think?” Mrs. Hairbird said.
“What do you?” he replied.
“But I want to know what _you_ think,” she insisted.
“And I would rather know what _you_ think,” said he.
“No, but really,” asked she, “do you like this tree?”
“Do you?” asked Mr. Hairbird.
“Yes, yes,” answered she.
“So do I!” he said, with a happy twitter. “Isn’t it queer how we
always like the same things?”
“I wonder if we like the same branch?” said Mrs. Hairbird, after a
long pause, in which both picked insects off the fir-tree and ate
them.
“Which branch do you like?” asked he. But he could not help looking
out of the side of his eye at the one he most fancied. He could not
look out of the corner of his eye, you know, because round eyes have
no corners, and being a bird his eyes were perfectly round.
“I like that one,” she cried, and laughed to think how easily she had
found out his choice. Then he laughed, too, and it was all decided,
although Mrs. English Sparrow, fussing around in her mass of hay and
feathers above them, declared that she never heard such silliness in
her life, and that when she had made up her own mind that was enough.
She never bothered her husband with questions. Mr. English Sparrow
heard her say this, and thought he would rather like to be bothered in
that way.
Mrs. Blackbird thought it all a great joke. “When they have been
married as long as I have,” she said, “it wont take so long to decide
things.” Mrs. Blackbird laughed at everything, but she was mistaken
about this, for the Hairbirds, or Chipping Sparrows, as they are
sometimes called, are always devoted and unselfish.
It being the custom in their family, the newcomers built quite low in
the tree. Such a happy time as they had. Every bit of grass root which
either of them dragged loose and brought to the tree, was the
prettiest and stoutest and best they had ever seen. And when it got to
the Horsehairs for lining, they visited all the barns for a block
around, hunting for them. Once, when Mrs. Hairbird wished for a white
hair for one particular place, Mr. Hairbird even watched for a white
Horse, and pulled it out of his tail.
You can imagine how surprised the Horse was when he felt that little
tweak at his tail, and, looking around, saw a small brown bird
pulling at one of his longest hairs. “I am sorry to annoy you,” said
this bird, “but Mrs. Hairbird needed a white hair.”
“That is all right,” said the Horse, to whom one hair was a very small
matter, and who dearly loved a joke. “Please tell Mrs. Hairbird that
my tail is hers if she wishes it.”
“Your tail is hers!” exclaimed Mr. Hairbird, who ought to have seen
the joke, since he was not an English Sparrow. “Oh, no, surely not!
Surely your tail is not her tail. They are quite different, you know!”
Then he understood and hurried away, but not in time to help hearing
the Horse laugh.
When the white hair was woven in, the nest was done, and Mrs. Hairbird
laid in it four greenish blue eggs with dark brown specks. In the nest
above were six greenish white ones with brown and light purple spots.
In the nest above that were five dingy streaked and speckled ones.
Mrs. Hairbird said that hers were by far the prettiest. “It is not
because I laid them,” she said to her husband. “It is not for that
reason that I think so, but they really are.”
Mr. and Mrs. Hairbird were the only ones who paid for the chance to
build in the tree. They picked insects off the branches, insects that
would have robbed the tree of some of its strength.
The Blackbirds would not bother with such small bits of food. The
English Sparrows should have paid in the same way, but they would not.
Their great-great-great- --a great many times great- --grandparents
were brought over to this country just to eat the insects which were
hurting the trees and shrubs, but when they got here they would not
do it. “No, indeed,” said they; “we are here now, and we will eat
what we choose.” Their great-great-great- --a great many times
great- --grandchildren were just like them.
Silvertip often came to sit under this tree. He called it a family
tree, because it had so many little families in its branches. He could
not climb it. The fine branches and twigs were so close together that
he could not get up the trunk, and they were not strong enough for him
to step from one to another of them.
As might perhaps have been expected, there was some gossipping among
neighbors in this tree. The Blackbirds usually climbed to their nest
by beginning at the bottom of the trunk and going around and around it
to the top. This took them so close to the other nests that they could
not help looking in. At any rate, they didn’t help it.
Mrs. Blackbird told Mrs. Hairbird that the way Mrs. Sparrow kept house
was a disgrace to the tree. Mrs. Sparrow told her to be very careful
not to leave her eggs or young children alone when the Blackbirds
were around, because when they were very hungry they had been known
to----! She did not finish her sentence in words, but just ruffled up
her feathers and fluttered her wings, which was a great deal meaner.
If she were going to say such things about people, you know, she
should have said them, and not made Mrs. Hairbird guess the worst
part.
Mr. Blackbird said he pitied Mr. Sparrow with all his heart. He knew
something what it was to have a wife try to run things, but that if
Mrs. Blackbird had ever acted as Mrs. Sparrow did, he would leave her,
even if it were in the early spring.
Mr. Sparrow said it was most disagreeable to have such noisy neighbors
as the Blackbirds overhead. That if his wife had known they were
coming to that tree, she would have chosen another place. “Of course
it was too late for her to change when she found it out,” he said.
“Her nest was well begun, and she had some very choice straws and
feathers which she didn’t care to move. You know how such things get
spoiled in carrying them from place to place.”
Most of these things were told to Mrs. Hairbird, because she was at
home with the eggs, but she repeated them all to her husband when he
came. She even told him how Mr. Sparrow flew down one day just after a
quarrel with his wife, and of all the things he had said when angry.
It was quite right in Mrs. Hairbird to tell her husband, and yet she
never chirped them to another bird. And that also was right.
When people talked these things to her, she always looked bright and
pleasant, but she did not talk about them herself. Indeed, she often
made excuses for her neighbors when she repeated things to her
husband. For instance, when she told what Mrs. Sparrow had said about
Mrs. Blackbird, she added: “I suppose that may be so, still I feel
sure that Mrs. Blackbird would not eat any of our children unless she
were _dreadfully_ hungry.”
You can see what a sweet and wise little person Mrs. Hairbird was, and
her husband was exactly like her. No matter how other people
quarrelled, they did not. No matter what gossip they heard, they did
not repeat it. And it ended just as such things always do.
In late spring, about the time that the Bees were gathering varnish
for their homes, and every fir-tree tip had one or two buzzing around
it, there was a dreadful quarrel in the family tree. Mrs. Sparrow
wanted some grasses from the outside of the Blackbirds’ nest, and she
sat on her own and looked at them until she felt she could not live
without them. Of course, that was very wrong. She might have forgotten
all about them if she had made herself think about something else.
Any bird who wants something he ought not to have should do that. She
might better have looked down at her own breast, or counted her wing
feathers over and over. However, she didn’t. She took those grasses.
Mrs. Blackbird missed them, and then saw them woven loosely into the
nest below hers. She did not say much, and she did not eat the eggs
out of the Sparrows’ nest. Some people said that she ate them, but
that was a mistake. All that she did was to sit very quietly on her
nest while a Red Squirrel ate them. When this same fellow would have
eaten those in the nest below, both the Hairbirds being away, she
drove him off herself.
You can imagine what the Sparrows said when they returned. Or perhaps
you might better not try to, for they said very cross things. Then
Mrs. Blackbird told what she thought about those stolen grasses,
and her husband joined in, until there was more noise than a flock of
Crows would make.
[Illustration: A RED SQUIRREL ATE THEM. _Page 34_]
It ended in Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow tearing down that nest and building
another in the woodbine, where most of their relatives lived. Some of
their neighbors thought the Blackbirds right and some thought the
Sparrows right, but through it all Mr. and Mrs. Hairbird were happy
and contented, and brought up their four charming children to be as
good birds as they were themselves.
The Sparrows often said that the worst thing about going away from the
family tree was leaving the Hairbirds, who were such delightful
neighbors. The Blackbirds said that the pleasantest thing about the
tree was having the Hairbirds for neighbors. The Hairbirds were liked
by everybody, and never made trouble between friends. It was all
because they knew how and when to keep their bills shut.