Marshall Saunders

“ Black Thomas snarled a trifle; then, seeing her friend the cook at the back door, he went to her.
“Too much monkey, eh, Billie?” I said.
She just burst into dog talk. “I’m nearly crazy, Dicky-Dick. I don’t know what I’ll do. Every minute that thing persecutes me. She sleeps in my box with me and kicks me to death. She is always creeping up to me and putting her arm round me, and it tickles me—and I’m tired of giving her rides. I’m not a pony. I’m a dog. I hate any one to love me so hard. I wish she’d hate me.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Then we took so much exercise flying to and fro that it sharpened our appetites. I shall never forget the good taste of the egg food that I fed myself, and the bread and milk, the bits of banana and orange, and pineapple and apples, and pears and grapes—the little saucers of corn meal and wheat and oatmeal porridge, and the nice, firm, dry seeds—rape, millet, canary, hemp and sometimes as a great treat a little poppy seed.
The floor was covered with gravel and old lime, and once a month a man came in and swept it all up and put down a fresh lot. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My little mother Dixie used to tell us stories as she brooded over us. Some people do not know that when a mother bird hovers over her little ones, and twitters softly to them, that she is telling them tales, just as a human mother amuses her babies.
My mother told us that we ought to be very happy little birds, for we were not in a cage where canaries are usually hatched, but in a good-sized bird-room, in a comfortable nest. ”

“ Martin stood out on the sidewalk showing something under her coat to the lodging house landlady.
“Missie has something alive there,” said Billie; “I know it. She is bringing it in.”
“Well,” I said a little crossly, “why make such a fuss and wake me out of what was going to be a nice nap?”
Billie was trembling in every limb. “It’s something strange, Dicky-Dick. I can’t tell you how I feel.”
“Probably it’s a new dog,” I said. “Some one is always giving Missie one.”
“It’s no dog,” said Billie; “it’s no dog. Oh, I feel so queer! Something peculiar is going to happen.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ He swelled his little self all up till his feathers stood out round him like a balloon. Then he said with a burst of eloquence, “How can you understand, you caged bird, with your table always set? Imagine yourself in the street, no friends, no food, a cold wind blowing, four or five hungry nestlings with their tiny beaks open and nothing to put in them; your poor little mate hovering over them trying to keep them warm so they will be less hungry. ”

“ First of all, there was my lovely mother Dixie, an American canary, with dainty whirls of feathers on her wings, my golden colored father Norfolk, my father’s sister Silkie, her roller canary mate Silver-Throat, who was a tiny, mottled bird, with an exquisite voice, and about twenty other canaries of different breeds, some Australian parakeets, African love-birds, nonpareils, and indigoes, and in the nest beside me my little sister Cayenna and my brother Green-Top, so called from his green crest. I am a plainhead. ”

“ The hen-birds were Pretty Girl, Beauty, and Cantala, and the males were Pretty Boy, Redgold, and Cresto. Such little dear things they were, all gentle and good, no fighters among them.
At first Green-Top let me help him father them. Then when he got over his grief he began to beat me again, and I lost feathers.
When I speak of beating, I must not be taken too seriously. When canaries fight, they fly up into the air and down again, fluttering wings, crying out, and making dashes at each other—a great fuss and flurry, but not much harm done. ”

“ Mr. Martin snatched a big walking stick from the hat-stand in the hall and rushed into the bedroom. There was nothing there, so he jumped through the window to the veranda. Nothing there, either, but at this moment there was such a heavy peal of thunder that he sprang in again and locked the window behind him.
“We are going to have a deluge,” he said. “The tramp must have taken himself off. I see nothing of him.”
“He couldn’t have got into the house, could he?” said Mrs. Martin, who by this time had appeared and had her arm round Mary. ”

“ Squirrie was beginning to find out that a bad squirrel always gets punished by some bird or beast. Well, at last the little wretch found his breath giving out, and he chattered, ‘Mer-mer-mercy!’ We all gathered round him, as he lay panting on a limb flat on his stomach to get cool. ”

“ No one can tell the terror of a lost dog, especially when that dog is timid. I had been torn from my home—a poor home, but still a dear one to me, and I was out in a world of confusion and fright and hurry. ”

“ Green-Top was his favorite now. My brother just loved our father and perched near him at night, and was so attentive to him that the old birds said, “That young one will never mate. He loves his parents too well. He will always live with them.”
I never dared sing in the bird-room now, for if I did Green-Top always pulled my tail or looked down my throat. These are great tricks with canaries, to take the conceit out of a bird they think vain. ”

“ I kept my head down, so none of it would go in my beak, and cast a glance up at Chummy, who was sitting on his branch, rocking with laughter. Some of the neighborhood sparrows were with him now, staring their eyes out at me, and up on the roof Slow-Boy, the pompous old pigeon, was bending over the edge to look at me, with the most amusing expression I had ever seen on the face of a bird.
I felt full of fun, and pretended to be quite happy in my new home. Hopping up on the perch, I gazed at the little girl with twinkling eyes.
Children are very sharp little creatures. ”

“ Our Mary was puzzled. “No cat could get at him,” she said; “he is too smart to be caught. It must have been another bird.”
“Oh, why can’t we understand?” said Mrs. Martin intensely, and she stared hard at Billie. “Tell me, my dog, how did our Dicky lose his tail.”
Billie, put on her mettle, ran to the window, looked out at the trees and barked wildly.
Our Mary spoke quickly. “That is the way Billie acts when she chases the red squirrel in the Tyrells’ lodging house. He is the only creature in the neighborhood that she chases, so she knows as well as we do that he is very naughty.” ”

“ I am only a young bird. There has always been enough good food for us all in the bird-room. I don’t think I could hurt another bird to save my own young ones, but I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t know,” said Chummy bluntly. “You never do know what you’ll do till you run up against some dreadful trouble; but I tell you, Dicky, I’ve made up my mind never to beat another wild bird. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Therefore, to help canaries and to help friends of canaries to understand them, I am giving this little account of my life—an insignificant little life, perhaps, and yet an important little life, for even a canary is a link in the great chain of life that binds the world together. ”

“ I am more like a German canary. Germans don’t care how a bird looks if he sings well.”
“Is there a French canary?” inquired Billie.
“Oh, yes, a very pretty little bird with whorls of feathers on its breast and sides—now, Billie, I haven’t time to tell you all the other kinds of canaries. I will go back to what I was going to say. My father, who has seen hundreds of canaries, for he was a show bird before our Mary got him, says that if trainers will have patience with young birds they can teach them to say certain things. Why, right in your own United States was a canary who talked.” ”

“ 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 said earnestly. “Now do come into my cage. You can’t reach the things very well from the outside.”
He went right in, and it did me good to see him eat. After he had stuffed himself, he said, “If I could tell you how sweet these seeds taste, and how delicious it is to get a bit of gravel. There isn’t an inch of ground visible in this whole city. Snow feet deep—never was anything like it before. Nearly every sparrow has indigestion from sloppy, wet, or frozen food, and no gravel to grind it.”
“Be thankful you are not a European bird,” I said. ”

“ I said, “you are too hard on those nice ladies who are all working for the soldiers, and must have good food to sustain them. I am sure they don’t realize what birds do for them. If they did, they would not wear us on their hats.”
“Human beings would all die if it weren’t for us birds,” said the sparrow. “Poisons and sprays are all very fine to kill insect pests, but there’s nothing like the bill of a bird.”
“Mrs. Martin says that farmers are beginning to find that out,” I replied, “and are making wise laws to protect birds. Women don’t understand, except a few like our Mary and her mother.” ”

“ The bird guest sat on the perch and ate the food placed before him. He was not expected to run over the Martins’ table and help himself.
“Dearie, you will not care for soup,” said Mrs. Martin, when Anna placed a big thing like one of our bathing dishes before her.
I had never seen human beings eating, and as I sat on my perch in the fern dish I could not help smiling. They did not put their mouths down to their food, they brought the food up to their mouths by means of their arms, which are like our wings. Their legs they kept under the table. ”