However, by this time Squirrie was gone. I had one last glimpse of him as he looked over his shoulder, before he scampered along the ridge pole of the barn to a near-by tree and from it to our house top, then along the roofs to his own house and into his little fortress. Across his mouth was the bunch of my tail feathers. He would probably line his nest with them. I could not move, and sat trembling and crouching on the ridgepole.
“Tell me, tell me what has happened?” said Chummy. “Oh, Dicky-Dick, your tail is gone—what a dreadful thing! You, there, stop laughing,” and he made a dash at a giddy young sparrow of last season, called Tommy, who was nearly killing himself giggling over my funny appearance.
“It was Squirrie,” I said in a gasping way. “I was trying to do him good, and he bit off my tail.”
“Why didn’t you consult me?” said Chummy
gravely. “That animal has heard enough sermons to convert a whole street full of squirrels. They just roll off him like gravel from the roof.”
“I thought I might influence him,” I said, “if I got him alone and talked kindly to him, but I didn’t do him a bit of good, and I have lost my pretty tail.”
Chummy shook his head sadly. “It is too bad, Dicky-Dick. I wouldn’t have had this happen for a pound of hemp seed.”
“I never am pretty,” I said miserably, “even with all my feathers; but my tail was passable. I shall be a fright now, and Missie was just going to get a mate for me. A proud little hen bird will despise me. Oh, why didn’t I stay at home!”
“Never mind, Dicky-Dick,” said Chummy consolingly. “You meant well, but it is always a dangerous thing to meddle with old offenders. Punishment is the only thing that counts with them, and I’ll see that Squirrie gets it.”
“Don’t do anything on my account,” I said quickly. “I forgive him.”