One day I got very cross with Fessor for writing so much, and I determined to hide from him. By this time I knew the “den” pretty well, and I had found, “way back” in the big box in the corner, where the piles of big envelopes and loose papers were, the cutest hiding-place in the world. It was a kind of tiny house formed by the piles of papers and I could just crawl into it through a narrow place, and then I had room to move around easily, and I knew no one could find me. So I slipped off from the desk on this particular day and dodged into the box and hid myself. Fessor didn’t see where I went, and pretty soon he began to wonder where I was, for he looked all around and went and peeked behind the desk and on the book stand and other places where I often “played hide,” but of course he couldn’t find me. I stood as still all the time as a bird knows how, and never let on that I knew he was seeking for me; and so, after a while, he gave up the search.
“The cutest hiding-place in the world.”
And I didn’t let him know where I had my hiding-place. He thought it was in that box, but he never did know. So it was great fun once in a while to slip away and hide, and then when I was hungry suddenly pop out (without his seeing me), run to his feet, chirp and call, and say: “Here’s Scraggles, as hungry as a hunter.” Then he would reach his hand down, lift me up to the desk, and pretend to scold me: “Where have you been, you naughty little bird? I’ve been hunting everywhere for you, and couldn’t find you!” But I wouldn’t let on. I’d just peek at him, first out of one eye and then out of the other, as much as to ask: “Don’t you wish you knew?”
“At first I thought it was another little bird.”
Chapter VI
Preening my Feathers
I don’t know what it was that made Fessor laugh so when I tried to “spruce up” and make myself look as pretty as possible. Of course, I know full well that I was not a pretty bird. Perhaps I ought to tell you just exactly how I did look. Now you needn’t laugh and think I don’t know, for I do. I’ve seen myself in the mirror lots of times. Fessor and Edith used to take me and stand me before the glass, and while at first I thought it was another little bird, and I tried to talk to and play with it, I soon learned it was only a picture of myself. So, as I looked at myself quite often, I’ll tell you just how I did appear when I was three months old. My baby bill was gone and I looked more like a full-grown bird, but my feathers were still as scraggedy and raggedy as ever. My body and tail were a mousey-brown, with the wing feathers white and tipped with brown. My neck and breast were partially covered with soft, beautiful down of mouse color, and my head feathers were brown, with just one half-white feather in the centre which looked like a tiny crest. I was the smallest little bird ever seen, I guess,—I mean a sparrow,—and no more like the big, healthy, pert, and bouncing street sparrows than a delicate terrier is like a big bull-dog.
I was going to tell you about the way Fessor laughed when I tried to spruce up and preen my feathers. But I have found on his desk something he wrote, and I shall let you read it for yourselves. He doesn’t tell, though, how he used to sit there and laugh and laugh and laugh, until sometimes I almost thought he’d laugh his head off. And why he should laugh to see a tiny little bird like me make myself look nice, I don’t know. He used to spend time enough himself some days in making himself look neat. He’d put on his dress-suit and his pretty tie, and see that his boots were so finely polished, and all that kind of thing, so why should he laugh so at me?