“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know,” I said. “It breaks my heart to think of little gentle birds and nice dogs and cats and monkeys and other creatures being hurried from city to city
in little stuffy traveling boxes, and whipped on to a stage, and made to bow and act silly to please great theaters full of people who applaud and praise, and don’t know what they’re doing. If they did know, if the great big kind-hearted public knew what those smooth-looking men in the long-tailed coats do to their animals behind the scenes, they would get up in a body and walk out whenever an animal act is put on the stage.”
“That’s the best way to put these fellows out of business,” said Billie warmly. “Let no one patronize their shows. Then they would have to earn their living in some honest way—but there is Chummy at the window. I wonder what’s happened.”
We both looked at the little fellow as he stood by the open window.
“News! News!” said Chummy, flapping his little dusky wings. “New arrivals in the neighborhood—a boy and a girl and their parents in the yellow boarding-house.”
“Some canaries are afraid of strange children,” I said, “because they come so close and poke their fingers at them, but I can always get away from them.”
“I like children,” said Chummy, “for if they
have food, they nearly always throw some to me.”
“There are very few children in this neighborhood,” I said.
“Yes, because there are so few private houses. Come on out and see them, Dicky.”