CHAPTER X

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.”