Marshall Saunders - Golden Dicky, The Story of a Canary and His Friends

“Yes, yes,” I said hurriedly. “We cage birds are more handicapped than you wild ones. I know, though, about the bird exchange. I’ve heard the old birds say that they have even had to depend on cockroaches sometimes for items of news, when they couldn’t get about themselves.”

“Well,” continued Chummy, “I made up my mind something had to be done to enlighten the soldier’s widow, so the next morning I just hovered round and gave up all thought of breakfast for myself, though of course I rose extra early, and fed the young ones before my mate got up.

“I watched the soldier’s widow when she took the bottle of milk from the refrigerator and put it on the pantry shelf. I watched her when she poured some in a little pitcher and put it on the dining-room table. I still kept my eye on her when she went to the back door to speak to the vegetable man, but after that I watched Squirrie.

“The little beast was darting into the dining-room. He went straight for the milk pitcher and holding on the edge with his paws, he ran his head away down into it, to get a good long drink.

“I lighted on the window sill and gave a loud squawk. The soldier’s widow turned round, looked past me, and saw Squirrie with his head in the milk pitcher. She gave a loud and joyful squeal, dropped the cabbage she was holding and ran in the room, just in time to see Squirrie with a very milky face darting out the other door to the front of the house.

“Oh, how happy she was! It had all come over her in a flash what a goose she had been not to have guessed it was a squirrel that was defrauding her. She ran up to the student’s room to tell him the good news, and he went to the window and shook his fist at Squirrie and called him the red plague.”

“What did Squirrie say?” I asked.

“Squirrie said, ‘I don’t care,’ and instead of hiding from them, as he had always done before, he came boldly out on a branch, and licked his milky paws. Then he moved six doors down the street to a house where two maiden ladies lived. They have gone away now, but they kept a small tea-room and sold cake and candy. Squirrie went creeping round them, and they thought it was cute to have a little pet, so they used to put nuts for him on their windows.”

“Didn’t they know what mischief he had done at the corner?” I asked.

“No—you young things don’t know how it is in a city. No one knows or cares who lives near by. In the nice, kind country you know everyone for miles round. Well, Squirrie got so familiar with these ladies that he used to sleep in the house and tease the family cat. He didn’t do much mischief at first. He knew he was in a good place, but one day just before Easter, Satan entered into him, and he played the poor ladies a very scurvy trick.

“They had been getting their baskets all ready for Easter sales, and had them in rows on a big table—such cute-looking little Japanese baskets, they were, all red and yellow and filled with layers of nuts and candy.

“This day both ladies went downtown to buy more things for more baskets, and Squirrie got into the room and began playing with those that were finished. I saw him through the window, but what could I do? When I chirped to him that he was a bad beast to spoil the work of the two ladies who had been so good to him, he chattered his teeth and made a face at me.

“Now, if he had just played with one or two baskets, it would not have mattered so much, but he is like Silly Bob in cherry time.”

“Who is Silly Bob?” I asked.

“A robin who is weak in his head. Instead of eating a few cherries, he runs all over a tree, and gives each cherry a dab in the cheek—ruins them all and makes the gardeners furious with him. Squirrie ran up and down the rows of tempting-looking baskets, so afraid was he that he could not get all his mischief in before the ladies came back. He bit a few straws on the top of each one, then he attacked the sides and then the bottom. Then he tore the covers off and threw the candy and nuts on the floor.”

“What! Out of every one?” I asked, in a shocked voice.

“Every one, I tell you. Oh, they were a sight! Every basket was ruined. The nuts he carried off to his hole in the tree.”

“And what did the poor ladies say when they came back?” I asked.

“You should have seen their faces. They had paid fifty cents apiece for the baskets, and you know how expensive nuts and candies and raisins are. Then they got angry and hired a carpenter to come and nail up Squirrie’s hole in the tree, taking good care to see that he was out of it first. If he went near the house, they threw things at him.”

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