“Allow me to introduce my friend Chummy Hole-In-The-Wall,” I said. “He is going to make the neighborhood safe for me,” I added pointedly, for Billie dislikes strangers.
She wagged her tail slightly, very slightly,
and lay down again, as if to say, “Have any friend in you like, but don’t bore me.”
Chummy is a very sensible bird. He did not fuss and fidget about coming into a house, and say that he was afraid something might hurt him. He merely said, “This is a very unusual thing for a sparrow to do, and a number of my friends outside are wondering why I came in. However, I am very hungry and I trust you. But of course you understand, you will be held responsible for my safety.”
I smiled. I knew what he meant. A number of bright-eyed sparrows had been watching me as I talked to him. If anything happened to him in this room, Green-Top’s beatings would be nothing compared to the one they would give me.
“You are as safe here as in your hole in the wall,” I said earnestly. “Now do come into my cage. You can’t reach the things very well from the outside.”
He went right in, and it did me good to see him eat. After he had stuffed himself, he said, “If I could tell you how sweet these seeds taste, and how delicious it is to get a bit of gravel. There isn’t an inch of ground visible in this
whole city. Snow feet deep—never was anything like it before. Nearly every sparrow has indigestion from sloppy, wet, or frozen food, and no gravel to grind it.”
“Be thankful you are not a European bird,” I said. “They have had perfectly dreadful times of suffering over there.”
“Have you heard the story about the little British canary that was killed during the war by one of its own guns?” asked Chummy.