were partially covered with soft, beautiful down of mouse color, and my head feathers were brown, with just one half-white feather in the centre which looked like a tiny crest. I was the smallest little bird ever seen, I guess,—I mean a sparrow,—and no more like the big, healthy, pert, and bouncing street sparrows than a delicate terrier is like a big bull-dog.

I was going to tell you about the way Fessor laughed when I tried to spruce up and preen my feathers. But I have found on his desk something he wrote, and I shall let you read it for yourselves. He doesn’t tell, though, how he used to sit there and laugh and laugh and laugh, until sometimes I almost thought he’d laugh his head off. And why he should laugh to see a tiny little bird like me make myself look nice, I don’t know. He used to spend time enough himself some days in making himself look neat. He’d put on his dress-suit and his pretty tie, and see that his boots were so finely polished, and all that kind of thing, so why should he laugh so at me?

This is what he wrote:

“Some days she will come and preen her feathers by my side as I write. It is her joy to sit on the very sheet upon which I am engaged, and for five or ten minutes such performances! With first one foot, then the other, she scratches her head with inconceivable rapidity. Then, getting a little oil from her receptacle, she begins to preen; under the left wing, down each feather, occasionally darting her bill like lightning upon some other feather that appears to her to need attention. Such screwing of the neck, twisting of the body, standing on tiptoes to get to the feathers on her body, such stretching to reach the tips! After it is done to her content, she gives herself several little shakes-down all over, quick flutterings and flappings of her wings, and settles down for awhile only to begin again and go through the whole performance once more if something suggests it ought to be done.”

Fessor also thought the way I stretched myself was very funny, though I could see nothing funny in it; so I will let you read what he wrote about that:

“To see her stretch one would think her tiny body was as full of sleep as that of a giant. First, one leg goes sprawling out as far as she can reach, and, with a spasmodic little kick, she brings it back into position, to push out the other. Then each wing in succession is stretched out, and sometimes, whether purposely or not I do not know, she lets the feathers comb through her claw.

“But the most interesting of her ‘stretchings’ comes when I put her on the window-sill and something goes on outside that she becomes interested in and wishes to see. She stretches up her little legs until it appears as if she were on stilts, and then, elongating her neck to more than twice its ordinary length, she veritably appears to be a tall bird with a long neck. Her excitement at such times is intense. She prances and cranes, and looks first out of one eye and then out of the other, hops back and forth, dances up and down, and generally shows a tremendous interest for so small a body.”

Chapter VII
Going Out of Doors

Now I must tell you about some of our daily walks. Fessor used to say to me: “Scraggles, you must go out of doors more, and watch the other birds and learn to fly. I want you to fly. How can I turn you loose to be a happy little bird in God’s great free out-of-doors if you don’t learn to fly? Come along now and see how the other birds do it, and then try for yourself.”

Then he would snap his fingers for me and I would come and jump into his hand and he would carry me out of doors where the sparrows and other birds seemed to be having so good a time. Of course, I watched them and was very much interested in them. I used to fairly long to fly as they did, and as they skimmed through the air I would stretch out my legs and wings and try to imitate them with all my might and main. Yet it was no use. My bad wing did not get strong, and it would not hold me up. Then Fessor would put me down on the ground near where a lot of sparrows would be pecking and chattering away on the road, and I felt that he wanted me to make friends with them. So I hopped toward them as fast as I could, and I chirped, and cheeped, and twittered, but, strange to say, never a one of them paid the slightest attention to me. They hardly ever looked at me, and never once said: “How do you do?” As soon as I reached them they flew away and left me to myself. Wasn’t that cruel? It seemed to me it was, but Fessor was always there near by, and would comfort me so sweetly by telling me not to mind; and as he snapped his fingers, I ran back to him, jumped into his hand, and felt comforted as he made me snuggle up to his whiskers, which I soon learned were almost as soft and warm as my mother’s feathers used to be.

Sometimes he would go indoors and tell Mamma that “her efforts were pitiable,” whatever that may mean, and then they would both be so gentle and kind and sweet to me, and talk so soothingly that I felt: “Well, even if I can’t fly, I have dear friends who love me very much and try to make me happy!” and that made me feel much better.

And still, any one would have known that Fessor was once a boy, a real, teasing, mean kind of a boy, for now and again he seemed to delight in teasing me. I must confess I got used to it, and didn’t mind it very much, but at first it distressed me quite a little, and I felt hurt when he just stood there and laughed at me.

One day he had taken me out onto the lawn—as he often did—and I was hopping about, when suddenly he took off his great big, broad-brimmed sombrero and threw it right over me, so that it fell to the ground a few feet beyond me. I was so scared! I saw that black thing skimming over me and thought it was a dreadful something coming to take me and kill me, perhaps; so, though I felt weak all over, I called up all my strength and hopped and fluttered right up to Fessor and jumped for safety upon his foot.

Then he seemed to be ashamed of himself, and said something to Mamma about its being “too bad to tease a poor little Scraggles like that.” So you see, I knew he had done it to tease me. But he picked me up and loved me so sweetly and gave me two pinion nuts which he chewed up for me, so that I couldn’t help forgiving him.

Oh! and I mustn’t forget to tell you about how he used to dig up slugs and worms for me. While I would be hopping about on the lawn he would go to a corner of the lawn and begin to dig. As soon as I saw him digging I didn’t wait to be called, but just hopped over there as fast as I could, and watched. Sometimes he saw the worm or slug or egg sooner than I did, but generally I had seen it and pecked it up before he knew it was there. It was great fun every day to go out and have a feast like that. I believe he enjoyed it as much as I did, and of course it was real good to me, for little birds do like slugs and worms, provided they are not too big for them to swallow. When Fessor would turn up a great, big, long worm and I would try to swallow it, he would laugh at me so funnily. But it was no fun to me, I can assure you, to try to swallow a worm longer than myself. And so I had to go to work with my bill and cut him up into smaller pieces, and that sometimes made me very tired.

Now and again Fessor would take me over to a neighbor’s whom he called “Friar Tuck.”[2] He would say to me in his funny way: “Now, Miss Scraggles, I am the bold and daring Robin Hood. You are a maiden who has fallen into my hands, and you are going to marry me, forsooth. Come along, and we will hie ourselves away to Friar