JACK
AND
JENNY.
A SPARROW that lived with many others in a public park offended his neighbors by getting up too early in the morning and beginning to chirp before they were willing to be waked. They called a meeting of all the flock, and after considering the matter told him that he and his mate must look for another home.
This he refused to do, saying that he had as good a right to stay where he was as they had.
“These trees do not belong to you,” he said, “and you don’t pay rent for the bird-boxes we live in. They were put up by the people who own the park, because they love to see us building our nests and flying about here.
“Beside this,” he continued, “I have done nothing with which you ought to find fault, for I never wake till the break of day, and do not begin to chirp for several minutes after that, when all industrious sparrows should be ready for breakfast. This very morning I heard a cock crow before I opened my bill, and what sparrow would not be ashamed to be lazier than the chickens?”
When the other birds heard this speech, they did not try to answer it—for, indeed, it was every word true and they could say nothing against it—but, having the power on their side, they all at once fiercely attacked the sparrow with their beaks and claws. Nor did they attack him alone, but they flew at his innocent mate also, and hurt her more than they hurt him; for after they were both driven out of the park and had lodged on a neighboring fence it was found not only that her feathers were badly tumbled and torn, but, alas! that one of her eyes was pecked out.
