“How did it happen?” I asked.
The sparrow ran his little tongue out over his beak, for he dearly loves to talk, and went on,
“You see, the bachelor ladies were moving their furniture about to make their room look prettier, and they forgot the trap, and Miss Maggie did catch her toe in it, and there was such a yelling and screaming that it woke me out of a sound sleep.
“The lodgers all came running upstairs with fire extinguishers, and flat irons, and pokers, and one man had a revolver. I thought the house was on fire, and I flew out of my little hole in the wall to this tree. I came here, and from a high limb I could look right in the attic window. The lodgers were all bursting into the room and poor Miss Maggie, in curl papers and pink pajamas, was shrieking and dancing on one foot, and holding up the other with the trap on the toe of her bedroom slipper.
“Out on the roof, Squirrie was bending down to look at her. He was lying on his wicked little stomach, and he laughed so hard that at last he had to roll over in the snow on the roof to get cool. He looked terrible, and we all hoped he was going to pass away in the night, but the next morning as we sat round on the tree talking about him, and trying to think of some good thing he had done, he poked his head out of the
hole which is his front door, and made the most ugly faces at us that you can imagine. He is certainly a dreadful creature, and I shall be sorry for the housekeepers about here when the spring comes.”
I smiled at Chummy’s earnestness and settled down more comfortably with my breast against the bricks. The day was so pleasant that I thought I would stay out a little longer. I knew by the look in his little, bright eye that the sparrow liked talking to me. We were in a patch of sunlight that crept in his front door, and after the long cold winter the nice warm feeling on our feathers was very comforting.
“How does Squirrie trouble the housekeepers?” I asked.
“Well, to begin with, he bothers them because he has no home duties. He is an ugly, odd, old bachelor, and never gets a mate in the spring, because no self-respecting young squirrel will take up with such a scamp.”
“Poor creature!” I said. “It is enough to make any one ugly to live alone.”