“I didn’t know you’d got a lease of the place, or I wouldn’t have come,” answered the sparrow pertly.
“Come now, keep a civil tongue in your head,” said Mrs. Polly. “You’ll find it to your advantage. Where do you live?”
“Wherever I can. Sometimes in one place, sometimes in another.”
“That looks bad,” said Mrs. Polly gravely. “Did you ever hear the proverb that ‘rolling stones gather no moss’?”
“Now look here, Mrs. Parrot, I haven’t asked anything of you, and I ain’t going to. I acknowledge I’m a tramp, if having no home makes a bird one. I get my food where I can, but I don’t do anybody any harm. If I prefer to live that way, whose business is it but my own?”
“You’ve been fighting, I see,” said Mrs. Polly gravely; “’tisn’t respectable.”
“Now look here, ma’am! You’re kept in a cage, and have your food given you regular, and don’t have to trouble yourself about where your next meal is to come from. I live where I can, pick up my own meals where I can find ’em; if I can’t find ’em I go without. I sleep out in all kinds of weather, and that makes my feathers rough and my voice hoarse; but I want you to understand that I’m just as good a fellow as if I had a red tail and a hooked nose.”
“That’s very true,” said the good-natured canary, “I should like to make your acquaintance. You go about so much you must see and hear a good many things that we don’t.”
“Well, I guess I could tell you a thing or two that would make your feathers curl,” answered the stranger.
Just then the children came along with the little gray kitten that had been washed and fed, and seated themselves on the steps of the piazza.