“But I want to know what you think,” she insisted.
“And I would rather know what you think,” said he.
“No, but really,” asked she, “do you like this tree?”
“Do you?” asked Mr. Hairbird.
“Yes, yes,” answered she.
“So do I!” he said, with a happy twitter. “Isn’t it queer how we always like the same things?”
“I wonder if we like the same branch?” said Mrs. Hairbird, after a long pause, in which both picked insects off the fir-tree and ate them.
“Which branch do you like?” asked he. But he could not help looking out of the side of his eye at the one he most fancied. He could not look out of the corner of his eye, you know, because round eyes have no corners, and being a bird his eyes were perfectly round.
“I like that one,” she cried, and laughed to think how easily she had found out his choice. Then he laughed, too, and it was all decided, although Mrs. English Sparrow, fussing around in her mass of hay and feathers above them, declared that she never heard such silliness in her life, and that when she had made up her own mind that was enough. She never bothered her husband with questions. Mr. English Sparrow heard her say this, and thought he would rather like to be bothered in that way.
Mrs. Blackbird thought it all a great joke. “When they have been married as long as I have,” she said, “it wont take so long to decide things.” Mrs. Blackbird laughed at everything, but she was mistaken about this, for the Hairbirds, or Chipping Sparrows, as they are sometimes called, are always devoted and unselfish.