I didn’t know much about this, but I said timidly, “Isn’t that better for you sparrows? Aren’t there more scraps?”
“No, not so many. When the rich people lived here, we knew what we had to depend on. Either they would feed us, or they would not. Several kind-hearted ladies used to have their servants throw out food for neighborhood birds at a certain hour every day, and your Mrs. Martin has always kept a little dish full of water on her lawn beside the feeding-table. I suppose you have seen that from your bird-room window.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “We canaries used to sit on the window sill on cold mornings and watch Mr. Martin wading through the snow with the
nice warm food that his wife was sending out for the birds.”
“These boarding-house and lodging-house people come and go,” the sparrow went on. “Some feed us, and some don’t. Usually we are stuffed in summer, and starved in winter.”
“I have heard Mrs. Martin say,” I observed, “that wild birds should be assisted over bad seasons and fed whenever their natural supply gives out.”
“Sparrows don’t need food in summer,” said Chummy, “because then we expect to do our duty to human beings by eating all the insects we can, and the bad weed seeds.”
I said nothing. I thought I had not known my new friend long enough to find fault with him, but I wanted very much to ask him if he really thought English sparrows did do their duty by human beings.
“Would you like to see my little house?” he asked.
“Very much,” I replied, and I followed him as he flew to another tree. We were now further up the street where we could look back at our red brick house which is a double one, and quite wide. Now we were in front of one that