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Updated: May 18, 2025
The lads called him "Old Chirper," because he was always humming, whistling, or fiddling, and they often stopped a minute in their work or play to listen to the soft tones of the violin, which seemed to lead a little orchestra of summer sounds. The birds appeared to regard him as one of themselves, and fearlessly sat on the fence or lit among the boughs to watch him with their quick bright eyes.
A Story Re-told. "Miss Janet Hope, To the care of Lady Chillington, Deepley Walls, near Eastbury, Midlandshire." "There, miss, I'm sure that will do famously," said Chirper, the overworked, oldish young person whose duty it was to attend to the innumerable wants of the young lady boarders of Park Hill Seminary.
Oftentimes as the point of one of these progresses you may locate a chirper by the sudden ceasing of his chirp and find him in the tip of shadow, already numb. The black crickets keep up their tune longest, singing from beneath sheltering stones and bark or fallen leaves. With the direct sun vanish also other summer pasture people who have made the warmth of the day beautiful.
I, a girl of twelve, was the Janet Hope indicated above, and I had been looking over Chirper's shoulder with wondering eyes while she addressed the card. "But who is Lady Chillington, and where is Deepley Walls, and what have I to do with either, Chirper, please?" I asked.
Whitehead half-an-hour later, as she was coming down the stone corridor that led from the refectory, I did ask that lady precisely the same questions that I had put to Chirper. Her frosty glance, filled with a cold surprise, smote me even through her spectacles; and I shrank a little, abashed at my own boldness.
"If there is one thing in little girls more hateful than another, it is curiosity," answered Chirper, with her mouth half-full of nails. "Curiosity has been the bane of many of our sex. Witness Bluebeard's unhappy wife. If you want to know more, you must ask Mrs. Whitehead. I have my instructions and I act on them." Meeting Mrs.
"Good night," said Maya, politely, thinking "good night" was the greeting for the night like "good morning" for the morning. "Please excuse me for interrupting, but the music you make is so fascinating that I had to find out where it came from." The chirper stared at Maya, wide-eyed. "What sort of a crawling creature are you?" it asked after some moments had passed.
At such times one is vexed to think that there are writers on birds who invariably speak of the sparrow as a tuneless creature, a harsh chirper, and nothing more. It strikes one that such writers either wilfully abuse or are ignorant of the right meaning of words, so wild and glad in character are these concerts of town sparrows, and so refreshing to the tired and noise-vexed brain!
At the same time, he might have seen points of resemblance between his own early history and that of the callow chirper of divinity now holding forth from his pulpit, which might have tended to mollify his judgment with sympathy.
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