“Now,” she said, “if you are to be my husband, I will show you where we are to build.”
Mr. Sparrow flew meekly along after her. You would be meek with lame wings, a sore head, and three feathers off from your breast. She led the way to the front west porch, where the syringa shoots made a little hedge around it and a tall fir tree made good perching places beside it.
“Where are we going to build?” asked Mr. Sparrow. He saw plenty of good window ledges and places which would do for Robins and Phœbes and other birds who plaster their nests. Yet he did not see a single corner or big crack where a Sparrow’s nest could be made to hold together.
“I will show you,” answered Mrs. Sparrow. She perched on the top of a porch column and looked up at a small round hole nearly over her head. It was the place where a conductor pipe had once run through the cornice. Now the pipe had been taken away and the opening was left. She gave an upward spring and flutter and went straight up through the hole. “Come up!” she cried in the most good-natured way. “Come up! This is the best place I ever saw. Our nest will be all hidden, and no large bird or Squirrel can possibly get in. The rain can never fall on it, and on cold days we shall be warm and snug.”
She did not ask him what he thought of it, and he did not expect her to. So he just said, “It is a most unusual place.”
“That is what I think,” she replied. “Very unusual, and I would not build in the woodbine like some Sparrows. No, indeed! One who has been brought up in style beside a water-pipe, as I was, could never come down to woodbine. It should not be expected.”
“I’m sure it was not, my dear,” said her husband.
“Very well,” said she. “Since you like this place so much, we may as well call it settled and keep still about it until we are ready to build.”
Mr. Sparrow had not said that he liked it, yet he knew better than to tell her so. If he did, she might leave him even now for one of her other lovers. He really dreaded getting out through that hole, and let her go while he watched her. She went head first, clinging to the rough edges of the hole with both feet, let go with one, hung and twisted around until she was headed right, then dropped and flew away. Mr. Sparrow did the same, but he did not like it.
After a while they began nest-building, and all the straws, sticks, and feathers had to be dragged up through the little round doorway to the nest. Mrs. Sparrow did most of the arranging, while her husband flew in and out more than a hundred times a day. She was a worker. Any bird will tell you that. Still, you know, there are different ways of working. Some of the people who do the most work make the least fuss. Mrs. Sparrow was not one of these. When she did a thing, she wanted everybody to know it, and since her building-place was hidden she talked all the more to Mr. Sparrow.