One day we thought we would see how far they really were civilized in the matter of diet, and so we laid a mutton bone on the table. It was a bone that had been cooked, and had just a suspicion of meat on it left from our own dinner.
Along came the birds, of course, for they were always watching us, canting their heads to get a good look at the strange object. "What do you suppose it is?" they seemed to be asking each other. "Do you think it is safe to taste?"
But they seemed to remember that we never played a joke on them when they were hungry, and in a little while a sparrow pecked daintily at the bone. After this they all fell to eating the meat as fast as they could.
That was not the last bone that found its way to the birds' restaurant. Now we put the bones all about in the apple trees, or swing them on a string from the branches. It is great fun. If you can spare a large beef bone that has some marrow in it, just offer it to the birds in some quiet place. The first bird that gets to it will put his head in at the round tunnel in the middle of the bone, where the marrow is hidden, and you can come pretty near putting "salt on his tail" without his knowing what you are about.
You have all read that queer song Mother Goose made about the "blackbird pie." But that was a pleasant joke. The birds were never baked at all. They were put under the crust alive and well, just to surprise a great dinner party. It was only for ornament, as we put flowers in a vase and set them on the table. Shut up in the dark, in a great earthen pot, with just enough air for breathing coming in at the small holes pricked in the crust, it was no wonder the "birds began to sing" when the cover was lifted. Of course they all began to fly around the room, they were so glad to be free once more and to find that they were not "baked in a pie" at all.
It was a merry surprise for a great dinner party, and quite satisfactory, since there was plenty of food to eat besides blackbird pie. We never look at a field of blackbirds without thinking of the old rhyme and stopping to count the birds, just to see if there are exactly "twenty-four."
Here is a bit of rhyme in imitation of Mother Goose, which we fancy will fit very well when birds are bigger than boys and have pot-pie for dinner.
Sing a song o' sixpence;
A pocket full o' rye,
Four and twenty little boys
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened
The boys began to sing;
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before a king?
