I know! I know a very bad story about that black-haired woman in the red house.”
“I don’t want to hear it, Chummy,” I said. “I dislike gossipy stories.”
“You’re a funny bird,” he said, with a sidelong glance from his queer, tired, yet very shiny eyes.
Suddenly I had a mischievous impulse to sing. “Spring is coming, coming,” I sang, all up and down the scale, then I broke into my latest song that a very early white-throated sparrow was teaching me—“I—love—dear—Canada—Canada—Canada.”
The children were so astonished that they rushed over to the tree and stared up at me.
“Is it a sparrow?” asked the little boy, who was straight and slim and handsome.
The girl, who was big and bouncing and had golden hair and blue eyes, burst into a merry laugh. “Oh, Freddie, whoever heard of a sparrow singing! It’s a wild canary. How I wish we could catch it! I’m going to see if there’s a cage anywhere in the boarding house,” and she ran away.
Her brother came quietly under the tree. “Pretty bird,” he said quietly, “come down and
have some of my cake,” and he threw quite a large piece on the ground.
“Fly down, Chummy,” I said, “and get it. What a joke that the little girl thinks I am a wild bird!”