“Why not? I never saw a cage yet that could keep me between its bars. I am so slim that I can slip between anything, and you know what a swift flier I am.”
“Go on, then,” said Chummy. “I dare you; but take care you don’t get trapped.”
I made two or three scalloping flights about the children’s heads, as they stood open-mouthed staring at me, then I darted in the open door and pretended to eat the bread crumbs—things I dislike very much.
The little girl screamed with delight and loud enough to frighten the flock of wild geese we had just seen passing overhead on their way north. Then she ran to the branch, took the cage off, and sticking her chubby young hand in
the door, eagerly sprinkled a generous handful of moist salt on my tail.
I kept my head down, so none of it would go in my beak, and cast a glance up at Chummy, who was sitting on his branch, rocking with laughter. Some of the neighborhood sparrows were with him now, staring their eyes out at me, and up on the roof Slow-Boy, the pompous old pigeon, was bending over the edge to look at me, with the most amusing expression I had ever seen on the face of a bird.
I felt full of fun, and pretended to be quite happy in my new home. Hopping up on the perch, I gazed at the little girl with twinkling eyes.
Children are very sharp little creatures. She plunged her own blue eyes deep into mine and said what an older person would never have thought of saying, “Freddie, this bird looks as if he were laughing at me.”
Her brother gave me a long stare; then he said, with a puzzled face, “Sure—he’s laughing. What makes him laugh?”
“He’s planning to fly away,” she said, with amazing promptness. “Let’s take him in the house.”