CHAPTER XVII

I LOSE MY TAIL

Perching on the roof of the barn, I called softly, “Squirrie, Squirrie, where are you?”

For a long time he would not speak, then I heard him mocking me, “Here I am, baby, baby,” and he unexpectedly put his head out of a hole right behind me.

I turned round, and he made one of his dreadful faces at me.

“Squirrie,” I said gently, for I was determined not to lose patience with him, “come out, I want to talk to you.”

“And what have you to say that is worth listening to?” he asked teasingly, and sticking his head a little further out of the hole.

“I want to tell you how sorry I am for you,” I went on, “and to ask you if I can help you to try to be a better squirrel. The birds are getting pretty angry with you, and I fear they may run you out of the neighborhood if you don’t improve.”

At this bit of news he came right out, his eyes twinkling dangerously.

“What are they planning to do?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing definite. They’re just talking of what they’ll do if you tease their young ones this year, as you did last year. You remember they got very angry with you before the nesting season was over.”

He began to hum his favorite song—“I care for nobody; no, not I—”

“Squirrie,” I said pleadingly, “if you only knew how much pleasanter it is to be good and have everybody love you.”

“Just like you—little sneaking soft-face!” he said.

I was quite shocked. “I am not a sneak,” I said, “and why do you call me soft-face—I, a hard-billed bird?”

“You’re such a little drooling darling,” he said disdainfully, “making up to all the birds in the neighborhood, and pretending to be such an angel. You’re a little weasel, that’s what you are.”

“A weasel,” I exclaimed in horror, “a bad animal that sucks birds’ blood. Squirrie, you’re crazy!”

“I’m not crazy,” he said, coming quite out of the hole and sitting up on his hind legs and shaking his forepaws threateningly at me. “I see through you, Mr. Snake-in-the-grass.”

I was silent for a minute under this torrent of abuse and overwhelmed at his audacity in calling me, a tiny bird, by the names of bad animals—not that snakes are all bad, nor are weasels, but he used the bad part of them to describe me.

“Well,” I said at last, “you are taking my call in a wrong spirit.”

“Don’t I see through you!” he said fiercely. “Don’t I hear you talking me over with that imp Chummy! I’ll make him suffer for his bad talk about me. I’ll have his young ones’ blood this summer.”

“Do you think Chummy sent me to you?” I asked, in a shocked voice.

“No, I don’t,” he said roughly. “I think you came on your own sly account, you model bird trying to convert poor Squirrie and make him a smooth-faced hypocrite like yourself.”

“What do you mean by hypocrite?” I said furiously. “I am an honest bird. I am really sorry for you, and you know it. I would like to help you to be a better squirrel, but how can I help you, if you won’t let me?”

“You help me!” he said contemptuously. “Now what could you do, you snippy wisp of feathers and bone?”

I made a great effort to keep from losing my temper. “I could be your friend,” I said. “I could talk over your mistakes with you and advise you as to future conduct. It is a great thing to have a friend, Squirrie, one who really loves you.”

He became quite solemn and quiet in his manner. “Do I understand that you are prepared to love me?” he said.

“I am,” I said firmly. “I will be your friend and stand by you, if you will promise to try to be a better squirrel.”

“And give up Chummy?” he asked.

“Why should I give up Chummy?” I said. “He is a good, kind-hearted bird. I think he would become your friend too, if you reformed.”

“I hate Chummy,” he said.

“But don’t you understand, Squirrie,” I said quickly, “that if you become a good little animal, instead of hating everybody, you will love everybody, and you will feel so much more comfortable. It’s dreadful to be so mad inside all the time. It eats up your strength, and your kind-heartedness.”

I thought Squirrie was impressed, for he was silent for a long time and kept his head down. Then he began to laugh, quite quietly, but at last so violently that he shook all over.

I stared at him, not knowing what to make of him.

“You little tame yellow brat,” he said at last, “do you think I want to get like you? You have no fun in life.”

“What is fun?” I asked quietly.

His eyes shone like two stars. “Making things squirm,” he said.

“But squirming means suffering,” I replied.

He patted his little stomach with his paws. “What does it matter who suffers, if my skin is whole?”

“But your mind, Squirrie,” I said impatiently. “Even squirrels have something inside that isn’t all flesh. If I make another bird angry I feel nasty inside.”

“Squirrel minds don’t count,” he said airily, “my mother told me so. She said only bodies count.”

“That’s what the matter is with you,” I exclaimed. “You are hard-hearted and care only for yourself. If you get your own way, all the other little squirrels in the world can be cold and miserable and unhappy.”

“And all the little birdies too,” he said, mimicking me, “especially little Dicky-Dick birdies; and now for your impudence to me I’m going to take such a bite out of your tail that you’ll remember till moulting time the saucy offer you made to Mr. Squirrie to change his whole plan of life at your suggestion.”

I tried to fly, but I seemed paralyzed. He was staring fixedly right into my eyes, and suddenly he made a leap over my head, caught my tail in his mouth, and tore out every feather.

I thought he was going to kill me, and I screamed wildly, “Chummy, Chummy, help me! Help me!”

Dear old Chummy, whom I had seen down on the ground, examining the scrapings from my cage that Mrs. Martin always threw out the window to him, heard me and flew swiftly up. He gave his battle cry and in an instant the air was thick with sparrows, who were all about the roofs examining nesting sites.

However, by this time Squirrie was gone. I had one last glimpse of him as he looked over his shoulder, before he scampered along the ridge pole of the barn to a near-by tree and from it to our house top, then along the roofs to his own house and into his little fortress. Across his mouth was the bunch of my tail feathers. He would probably line his nest with them. I could not move, and sat trembling and crouching on the ridgepole.

“Tell me, tell me what has happened?” said Chummy. “Oh, Dicky-Dick, your tail is gone—what a dreadful thing! You, there, stop laughing,” and he made a dash at a giddy young sparrow of last season, called Tommy, who was nearly killing himself giggling over my funny appearance.

“It was Squirrie,” I said in a gasping way. “I was trying to do him good, and he bit off my tail.”

“Why didn’t you consult me?” said Chummy gravely. “That animal has heard enough sermons to convert a whole street full of squirrels. They just roll off him like gravel from the roof.”

“I thought I might influence him,” I said, “if I got him alone and talked kindly to him, but I didn’t do him a bit of good, and I have lost my pretty tail.”

Chummy shook his head sadly. “It is too bad, Dicky-Dick. I wouldn’t have had this happen for a pound of hemp seed.”

“I never am pretty,” I said miserably, “even with all my feathers; but my tail was passable. I shall be a fright now, and Missie was just going to get a mate for me. A proud little hen bird will despise me. Oh, why didn’t I stay at home!”

“Never mind, Dicky-Dick,” said Chummy consolingly. “You meant well, but it is always a dangerous thing to meddle with old offenders. Punishment is the only thing that counts with them, and I’ll see that Squirrie gets it.”

“Don’t do anything on my account,” I said quickly. “I forgive him.”

“So do I,” said Chummy grimly. “I forgive him so heartily that I am going to make an earnest effort to reform him myself.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked anxiously.

He smiled his funny little sparrow smile. “Wait and see—I will just tell you this much: I am going to pass him on to a higher court than ours.”

I did not know what he meant, but I listened eagerly as he said to some of the older sparrows who, seeing that he was looking after me, were leaving the roof and going back to their various occupations, “Friends, I am going up to North Hill. Just keep an eye on the grackles, will you? They are showing a liking for the trees in this neighborhood, and we don’t want them too near. If they bother you, call for help from Susan and Slow-Boy and drive them away. Don’t go too near them, just swarm at them and squawk loudly. They hate fussing from other birds, though they do enough of it themselves, gracious knows.”

Then he turned to me. “Shall I fly beside you, down to your window, Dicky-Dick? You had better go in and have a rest.”

“If you please, Chummy,” I said weakly. “I don’t know when anything has upset me like this.”

“You have lost some blood,” he said. “Those little feathers of yours must have been deeply rooted.”

He flew beside me quite kindly, till I got to my window. On arriving there, I begged him to come inside and have a little lunch before setting out on his long fly up to North Hill.

He was delighted to do this, especially as we found in my cage a good-sized piece of corn bread that Hester had just baked and Mrs. Martin had put in for me.

In his joy at finding it Chummy confided to me that the object of his journey was to find old King Crow and talk over Squirrie’s case with him.

“And who is King Crow?” I asked.

“He rules over all the crows in this middle part of Toronto, and in the North. He is very wise and has a great deal of influence. We sparrows hate the grackles, but like the crows, who often are of great assistance to us.”

“Chummy,” I said, “I feel badly at bringing this on Squirrie.”

“You are sincere in wishing Squirrie well, are you not?”

“Oh, yes, from the bottom of my heart I wish him to become a good squirrel.”

“And you didn’t succeed in making an impression on him. Now, why not hand him over to some one who has influence over him?”

“Very well,” I said sadly. “I suppose I had no business to interfere, but I meant well.”

Chummy smiled. “I have often heard that before. You see, Dicky-Dick, if all the kind birds and animals in this neighborhood who have tried to help Squirrie reform could not do it, how could you, a little weak stranger, coming in, hope to succeed?”

“That’s true,” I said. “Well, Chummy, I hope you will have a successful fly. You have a wise little head on your small sparrow shoulders.”

Chummy was poising himself on the window ledge by this time, preparatory to leaving me.

“There is a man in an airplane,” he said, looking up in the sky. “I’ll have a race with him to North Hill.”

I watched them starting out—the great whirring machine, and the tiny silent sparrow.

Chummy was ahead when I went back to my cage to have a rest. I wondered very much what Chummy would do, and impatiently awaited his return.