Dooryard Stories Part 11

His wings were lame from her fighting him, his head smarted where she had picked at it, and two or three small feathers were missing from his breast. Miss Sparrow was certainly a strong bird, and he knew that anybody who wanted her would have to stand just what he had stood. He would have preferred to court as the Goldfinches and Wrens do, by singing to their sweethearts, but that could not be. In the first place, he could not sing, and in the second place she would not have taken him until she had beaten him anyway. It would have been more fun for him to fight some of the other birds and let the winner have her, yet that could not be done either. If he wanted to marry, he had to marry an English Sparrow, and if he wanted to marry an English Sparrow he had to go about it in her way. It would have been just the same if he had courted her sister or her cousin.

The truth is that, although the Sparrow husbands swagger and brag a great deal and act as though they owned everything in sight, there is not one whose wife does not order him around. Miss Sparrow would not have taken him if she had not made sure that she could whip him.

"What do I need of a husband," she said, "unless he will mind me? And when I feel crosser than usual I want somebody always near and at home, where I can treat him as I choose. That is what I care for in a home."

"Now," she said, "if you are to be my husband, I will show you where we are to build."

Mr. Sparrow flew meekly along after her. You would be meek with lame wings, a sore head, and three feathers off from your breast. She led the way to the front west porch, where the syringa shoots made a little hedge around it and a tall fir tree made good perching places beside it.

"Where are we going to build?" asked Mr. Sparrow. He saw plenty of good window ledges and places which would do for Robins and Phbes and other birds who plaster their nests. Yet he did not see a single corner or big crack where a Sparrow's nest could be made to hold together.

"I will show you," answered Mrs. Sparrow. She perched on the top of a porch column and looked up at a small round hole nearly over her head.

It was the place where a conductor pipe had once run through the cornice. Now the pipe had been taken away and the opening was left.

She gave an upward spring and flutter and went straight up through the hole. "Come up!" she cried in the most good-natured way. "Come up!

This is the best place I ever saw. Our nest will be all hidden, and no large bird or Squirrel can possibly get in. The rain can never fall on it, and on cold days we shall be warm and snug."

She did not ask him what he thought of it, and he did not expect her to. So he just said, "It is a most unusual place."

"That is what I think," she replied. "Very unusual, and I would not build in the woodbine like some Sparrows. No, indeed! One who has been brought up in style beside a water-pipe, as I was, could never come down to woodbine. It should not be expected."

"I'm sure it was not, my dear," said her husband.

"Very well," said she. "Since you like this place so much, we may as well call it settled and keep still about it until we are ready to build."

Mr. Sparrow had not said that he liked it, yet he knew better than to tell her so. If he did, she might leave him even now for one of her other lovers. He really dreaded getting out through that hole, and let her go while he watched her. She went head first, clinging to the rough edges of the hole with both feet, let go with one, hung and twisted around until she was headed right, then dropped and flew away.

Mr. Sparrow did the same, but he did not like it.

After a while they began nest-building, and all the straws, sticks, and feathers had to be dragged up through the little round doorway to the nest. Mrs. Sparrow did most of the arranging, while her husband flew in and out more than a hundred times a day. She was a worker. Any bird will tell you that. Still, you know, there are different ways of working. Some of the people who do the most work make the least fuss.

Mrs. Sparrow was not one of these. When she did a thing, she wanted everybody to know it, and since her building-place was hidden she talked all the more to Mr. Sparrow.

"I am going to have a large nest," she said. "So bring plenty of stuff. Bring good things, too," she added. "You have brought two straws already that were really dirty, and this last stick isn't fit to use. I will push it back into a corner."

Mr. Sparrow would have liked to tell her what hard work his was, and ask her to use things he brought, even if they were not quite what she wanted. He was too wise for this, however, so he flew out and pitched into another Sparrow who was getting straws for his wife. He tried to steal his straw, and they fought back and forth until their wives came to see what was the matter and began fighting also. When they stopped at last, the straw had been carried away by a Robin, so neither had it. But they had had a lovely, loud, rough fight, and Sparrows like that even better than straw, so they all felt good-natured again.

Twice Mrs. Sparrow decided to move her nest a little this way or a little that, and such a litter as she made when doing it! Some of the best sticks fell down through the doorway, and the Lady swept them off the porch. Then Mrs. Sparrow scolded her. She was not afraid of a Lady. "She might have left them there," she said. "I would have had my husband pick them up soon. Yesterday she had the Maid put some of her own horrid chairs and tables out here while they were cleaning, and I never touched them."

Mr. Sparrow flew up with a fine Turkey feather. "It came from the Lady's duster," he said. "I think it will give quite an air to your nest."

"Excellent!" cried his wife. "Just wait until I get ready for it." He clung patiently by one foot to the doorway. When that was tired he changed to the other. When that was tired he perched on the top of the column. He was very hungry, and he saw some grain dropped from a pa.s.sing wagon.

"Hurry up, my dear!" he called. "It is past my dinner-time already."

"Wait until supper then," cried his wife. "As if I hadn't enough to do without thinking about your dinner! Don't let go of it or it will be blown away."

Then Mr. Sparrow lost his temper. He stuck that feather into a crack near by, and flew softly away to eat some grain. He thought he might be back in time to carry in the feather and his wife never know where he had been. Unfortunately, he got to talking and did not hear his wife call him.

"Mr. Sparrow!" said she. "_Mr. Sparrow!_ I am ready for that feather."

When he did not answer, she put her head out of the doorway. There was the Turkey feather stuck into a crack, and in the road beyond was her husband eating happily with several of his friends. She looked very angry and opened her bill to speak. Then she changed her mind and flew quietly off the other way. She went straight to the Horse-block, where another old suitor was, the one who had come so near winning her. "Mr.

Sparrow has disobeyed me," she said, "and is actually eating his dinner when he should be waiting by the nest to help me. I believe that I ought to have married you, but better late than never. Come now."

This was how it happened that when Mr. Sparrow's stomach was quite full, and he suddenly remembered his work, he flew back and found the Turkey feather gone. In the eaves overhead he heard Mrs. Sparrow telling somebody else what to do. He tried to force his way up there.

Every time he was shoved back, and not very gently either.

"You might better look for another home," said Mrs. Sparrow's voice.

"I have found another husband, one who will help me as I wish.

Good-by."

That was the ending of Mr. Sparrow's first marriage. It was a very sad affair, and the birds talked of nothing else for a long time afterward. Some said that it served him exactly right, because he married to get into a fine family, when there were dozens of Sparrow daughters much prettier and nicer than the one he chose. There may have been something in this, for certainly if Mrs. Sparrow had not been so sure of finding another to take his place, she would not have turned him out in the way she did. It is said, however, that her second husband had a hard life of it.

A RAINY DAY ON THE LAWN

When the sun rose, that morning late in April, he tried and tried to look at the big house and see what was happening. All he could see was a thick gray cloud veil stretched between him and the earth, and, shine as hard as he might, not a single sunbeam went through that veil.

When the Blackbirds awakened, they found a drizzling rain falling, and hurried on their waterproofs to get ready for a wet time. Blackbirds are always handsome, yet they never look better than when it rains.

They coat their feathers with oil from the pockets under their tails, as indeed all birds do, and then they fly to the high branches of some tall and swaying tree and talk and talk and talk and talk. They do not get into little groups and face each other, but scatter themselves around and face the wind. This is most sensible, for if one of them were to turn his back to the wind, it would rumple up his feathers and give the raindrops a chance to get down to his skin. When they speak, or at least when they have anything really important to say, they ruffle their own feathers and stand on tip-toe, but they ruffle them carefully and face the wind all the time.

When the Robins opened their round eyes, they chirped cheerfully to each other and put on their waterproofs. "Good weather for us," they said. "It will make fine mud for plastering our new nests, and it will bring out the Worms."

The English Sparrows, Goldfinches, and other seed-eaters were not made happy by the rain. With them it was only something to be borne patiently and without complaining. The Hummingbirds found fewer fresh blossoms open on cloudy days, and so had to fly farther and work harder for their food. The Pewees and other fly-catchers oiled their feathers and kept steadily at work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "O MOTHER, IT IS RAINING!" _Page 175_]

The birds had not awakened so early as usual, because it was darker.

They had hardly got well started on their breakfast before a sleepy little face appeared at the window of the big house and a sleepy little voice called out: "O Mother, it is raining! I didn't want it to rain."

"Foolish! Foolish! Foolish!" chirped the Robins on the lawn. "Boys would know better than to say such things if they were birds."

"Boys are a bother, anyway," said an English Sparrow, as he spattered in the edge of a puddle. "I wish they had never been hatched."

"Ker-eeeee!" said a Blackbird above his head. "I suppose they may be of some use in the world. I notice that the Gentleman and the Lady seem to think a great deal of this one, and they are a very good sort of people."

"I'd like them better if they didn't keep a Cat," said his brother.

"Their Cat is the greatest climber I ever saw. He came almost to the top of this maple after me yesterday, and I have seen him go clear to the eaves of the big house on the woodbine."

"That is because the Sparrows live there," said Mr. Wren. "He went to see their children. Silvertip says that he is very fond of children--they are so much more tender than their parents." Mr. Wren could laugh about this because his own children were always safely housed. Besides, you know, he had reason to dislike Sparrows.

"I would not stay here," said a Sparrow who had just come up, "if the people here were not of the right sort. They have mountain ash trees and sweetbrier bushes where birds find good feeding. And in the winter that Boy throws out bread crumbs and wheat for us."

"Humph!" said the Oldest Blackbird. "There is no need of talking so much about it. You can always tell what sort of people live in a place by seeing if they have a bird-house. If they have, and it is a sensible one, where a bird could live comfortably, they are all right."

After that the birds worked more and talked less, for the Oldest Blackbird, while he was often grumpy and sometimes cross, was really a very sensible bird, and what he had said was true. The Robins went here and there over the lawn in quick, short runs, pausing once in a while with their heads bent forward and then pulling up choice Worms to eat. Some of their mouthfuls were half as long as they, but that was not rude in Robins. What they insist on in bringing up their children is that mouthfuls should not be too broad, and that they should not stop swallowing until all the Worm is out of sight.

The Blackbirds hunted in a more dignified way. They never ran after food, or indeed after anything else. "If walking is not fast enough,"

the Blackbird mothers say, "then fly, but do not run." They walked in parties over the lawn and waggled their heads at each step. When they found Grubs they did not appear greedy, yet never a Grub escaped.