“Let me try!” another of Mr. Chippy’s cousins cried. But he had no better luck than the first.
Then each of the fourteen remaining cousins—and then Mr. Chippy himself—had his turn at the door. But every one of them found that he was about two sizes too big to squeeze through it.
Rusty Wren, watching then from inside his house, couldn’t help laughing, although it was really no joke.
Though he was usually very mild, Mr. Chippy grew terribly angry the moment he heard Rusty’s laughter. His sixteen cousins began to scold, too. Again they tried to crowd through Rusty Wren’s door. And they made such an uproar that when Johnnie Green stepped out of the farmhouse before breakfast he couldn’t help noticing them.
“What’s going on here?” he cried. And he hurried to his “wren house,” as he called Rusty’s home, and drove away the noisy visitors.
Then he shinned up the old cherry tree, to peep inside it. And as soon as he reached the tin can which was Rusty’s home Johnnie Green thought he heard an unusual cry within it.
“That doesn’t sound like a wren!” he exclaimed. “It sounds exactly like a chipping sparrow!” Then, as he looked, he saw Chippy, Jr.’s, head, with its bright bay cap, peer through the mouth of the syrup can.
“There’s a chippy inside my wren house!” Johnnie Green shouted to his father, who had come to a window to see what was going on. “How can I get him out?”
“Wait a moment!” said Farmer Green. And soon he came and handed Johnnie a can-opener.
“Cut out the end of the can!” he directed. “Then you’ll be able to reach in and get the little beggar.”