“Her mate Spotty came along after a while and fell into a rage. He asked if any bird had seen her at this mischief, and I said I had.
“He asked why I hadn’t stopped her, and I said it was none of my business.
“He said it was, that all the birds in the room, even the parakeets and the love-birds who are pretty selfish, had made up their minds to stop this business of egg-breaking; then they all fell on me and picked out my tail feathers to
remind me to interfere when I saw another bird doing anything wrong.”
“Do you feel badly about it, uncle?” I asked.
“My tail is pretty sore, but my mind is tranquil. I did wrong, but I have been punished for it, and my feathers will grow. Why worry about it? I am sorry for Spotty. He expected to have a nice lot of young ones in thirteen days, and now he will have to wait for weeks.”
“Why would Avis eat her eggs, when she has plenty of lime and crushed egg shell and all sorts of food here?” I asked.
“Habit, my birdie. She had the naughty trick and could not get over it. If I had only shrieked at her, it would have frightened her and kept her from murdering all her future nestlings, as Spotty says. But there is your cayenne pepper food coming. Go and eat some, so that your feathers will be reddish gold. It is a good throat tonic, too.”
Our Mary was just coming in with a saucer of mixed egg food, grated sweet bread, granulated sugar and cayenne pepper sprinkled on the top of it. She also had a deep dish of something purple.
“Blueberries, birds,” she said, as she put it down. “Nice canned blueberries, almost as fresh as if they had just come off the bushes.”