“Chummy,” I said, “I have known you only this afternoon, but I feel as if I had been acquainted with you for as long a time as if you had been brought up in the bird-room with me, and now I am going to ask you a very personal question. Don’t sparrows do some very wrong things?”
He smiled. “Oh, I see you have heard that anti-sparrow talk. I am not touchy about it. You can discuss it with me.”
“You seem a sensible bird,” I said. “Come now, tell me what you think you do that is wrong.”
He hung his little, dark head, and pretended to pick a feather from his black bib. “We are regular John Bull, Anglo-Saxon stock,” he said, “and we love to push on and settle in new countries. We were brought to the United States and Canada about fifty years ago to kill the canker worm. Some gentlemen near Toronto raised a subscription to bring us here. We spread all over this continent. We had to fight for our existence, and all the weak ones died. The strong ones became stronger, then we multiplied too much. Men should have watched us.”
“Good,” I said, “you believe that human beings come first and all birds should be subject to them.”
“Certainly,” he replied, “that is the first article in a sparrow’s creed, and there is no bird in the world that sticks to man as closely as the sparrow does. Why, we even sleep round men’s houses, tucked away in the most uncomfortable holes and corners. We really love human beings though they rarely pet us.”
“Our Mary pets sparrows,” I said stoutly; “so does her mother.”
“They are exceptions,” said Chummy, “few
persons are as kind-hearted as the Martins. I just wish all human beings would do as well by us as they have done by you canaries. They keep you in order, and let you increase or decrease just as is necessary, but they have let sparrows run wild, and it is as hard for us as for them. There is a great hue and cry against sparrows now, and men and women going along the street look up at us and say, ‘You little nuisances,’ and I chirp back, ‘It is your own fault.’”
“What could they do to you?” I asked. “You don’t want to be shot.”