“The cardinal-bird on your window-sill. This is Gwinie.”
“Why should he be telling me? And who is Gwinie? And how does she know a cardinal-bird is on my window-sill and hungry?”
“I can see him there. I live across from you at the asylum. He is hungry because I can’t come over and put crumbs on his bird-tray; and it’s snowed three days now.”
“Where is his bird-tray? And why can’t you come?”
“It’s there by the spruce-tree. You can see it from your window. It’s a tray on a stake in the ground. The other bishop kept it full. I can’t come over and fill it the way I’ve been doing because I’ve got the measles.”
“Is that so?” said the bishop. “So have I. Is there anybody over there who can come and fill it? You cannot expect me to ask Mrs. Dyer to wade out there in a blizzard. And old Aunt Sally would go under in the drifts.”
“The doctor told us you had measles,” said Gwinie. “You took them first; then we did. He’s just gone. He said I might come to the telephone and call up, and tell whoever answered about the cardinal. He said he didn’t want to have my measles worried in. We’ve all got them. There isn’t anybody who can come. Tim, he’s never got home from town. We’ve put crumbs out, but the birds don’t know it, and the snow keeps covering the crumbs up. We haven’t any tray over here.”
“H’m!” said the bishop. “And how can I put crumbs on the sills of French windows? They open outward, you know. What? Hold on there, Gwinie!”
“I have to go. Miss Lowry, she’s called three times. But I’ll think.”
The bishop hung up his receiver, and returned to the window to survey the situation in the light of what he had just learned. The cardinal had advanced boldly on the sill, and now hopped back and forth on it, with his bright eye fixed on the occupant of the room.