He went on with the service all by himself, sang a dreadful little song, so mournful and horrible that all Johnny’s sparrow relatives who had by this time assembled just quailed under it, then gently laid Johnny in the hole in the snow bank, covered him up, put a shingle at the head of his little grave and the artificial roses on the top, and went in the house.
“Well,” said Chummy, “she didn’t get her own way that time.”
“Hold on,” I said, “here she comes. I notice that little girls usually beat the boys in the long run.”
There she was, the little funny creature, sneaking out of the house by the back door. She crept to the grave, seized the shovel that Freddie had forgotten to return, dug up poor Johnny, tore her doll clothes off him, threw his poor little body on the snow, and ran into the house.
“Well, I vow,” said Chummy. “I wish she could be punished.”
“Hold on,” I said, “look at our children coming. They’ve been watching all the time.”
Sammy-Sam and Lucy-Loo were galloping out of our yard like two young ponies. They snatched up Johnny’s body and rushed to their aunt with it. I hurriedly said good-bye to Chummy, and flew in the window.
Mrs. Martin heard the whole story. It was perfectly sweet to see her face, as she listened to the children. Then she got a little tin box, wrapped Johnny in a nice piece of white cloth, and told the children that the cover would be soldered on and the furnace man would dig a nice little grave in the corner of the garden which she kept as a graveyard for her pets.
“You will become friends with the children in the boarding house, my dear ones,” she said, “and tell them what you know about birds, for they evidently have not had much to do with them.”