“No, indeed,” said Chummy, “nor poisoned. Our eggs should be destroyed for a few years; then there would not be so many of us.”
“But that is very hard on the mothers,” I said. “They cry so when an egg is broken.”
“My Jennie would cry,” said Chummy, “but she would understand, and she would not make so many nests. She knows that food and nests make all the trouble in the world. That’s what the seagulls tell us about the great war human beings had over the sea. They say it was all about food and homes that wicked people wanted to take away from good ones.”
A sudden thought dawned upon me. “Is that the reason why you sparrows are so cruel to the birds who come into the city from the country?”
“Yes, it’s a question of food shortage. There isn’t enough to go round. If there were, it would be equal rights. I don’t hate wild birds. I have many friends among them, and I never drive them away if there is enough for their little ones and mine, but if there is only a sufficient supply for little sparrowkins, I fear I am a bad, hard, father bird.”
“Do you ever kill them?” I asked fearfully.
“Never,” he said decidedly. “I take their nests, and sometimes when they are very obstinate, I beat them.”
“I don’t know what to think,” I said in a puzzled voice. “You seem a sensible bird, yet I don’t like the thought of your beating dear little wild birds.”
He swelled his little self all up till his feathers stood out round him like a balloon. Then he said with a burst of eloquence, “How can you understand, you caged bird, with your table always set? Imagine yourself in the street, no friends, no food, a cold wind blowing,
four or five hungry nestlings with their tiny beaks open and nothing to put in them; your poor little mate hovering over them trying to keep them warm so they will be less hungry. Wouldn’t you steal or beat to satisfy those cries?”