When she finished, Mrs. Martin and our Mary looked at each other. They had got the drift of it.
“Down at Riverdale,” said Mrs. Martin, “is a fine monkey house, with little healthy animals just like yourself. They have a good time playing in big rooms which are well warmed, then they run out a small door to a yard and romp in the snow. When they get cold, they hurry inside, and sprawl flat on the radiators. I will send you there, and I think you will be happier with your own kind.”
Nella’s face beamed, then she did such a pretty thing. Blinking her queer yellowish eyes affectionately at Mrs. Martin, she threw her two skinny arms round her arm and hugged it. She was very happy to go to the monkey house.
“Mary, please telephone for a taxi,” said
Missie, while Billie and I exchanged a look of deep content.
Then Daisy was taken up into a vacant room in the attic, and I was shut in a big cage with her until the monkey went away. After that, Mrs. Martin said we should both go downstairs.
CHAPTER XX
SISTER SUSIE
AS time went by, Sammy-Sam and Lucy-Loo became great friends with the children in the boarding house. Sometimes they quarreled, but always they made up, and we birds all noticed that the strange children were becoming almost as good to us as our own dear children were.
One day when it was warm and pleasant Sammy-Sam sat out on the doorstep trying to learn his spelling lesson for the next morning.