He fluttered to her, took it nicely, ate half, and saved the other half for Jennie, who was sitting on her nest on three eggs which would shortly be reduced to one.
“Chummy,” I said, as he came back to the railing where I sat. “This is a pretty happy family, isn’t it?”
“Very,” he said thickly, on account of the bread in his beak.
“And a pretty happy street,” I went on. “All the birds and animals are living nicely together.”
“Yes, yes,” he muttered.
“And Nella the monkey is frisking in the Zoo, and Squirrie is as contented as he ever could be, and perhaps a time is coming when the birds and animals all over the world will be as happy as we are on this pleasant street. What do you think about it?”
Chummy laid down his bread on the railing and covered it with his claw, lest I or Sister Susie might eat it in a moment of absent-mindedness.
“What do I think?” he repeated slowly. “I think that birds and animals will never be perfectly happy till all human beings are happy. We are all mixed up together, Dicky-Dick, and I have heard that if all the birds in the world were to die, human beings would die too.”
“How is that?” I asked.
“Because insects would devour all the plants and vegetables if there were no birds to check them. Then human beings would starve to death.”