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The miller caught three of them down there last winter, only one died and the other two aren't a bit happy; the male doesn't sing and the female has a cough. The miller's wife doesn't care much for them; they're a bother to feed, she says have to have meal-worms, and rice with the hulls on, and all that." "Why doesn't she let them out?" asked Olive.
The first time I offered meal-worms to them she was so lively as to secure more than her share; but he learned in a day or two that worms were to be had outside, especially on my desk, when he at once flew over to me and demanded them, in the funniest little defiant way, looking at me most significantly, and wiping his bill ostentatiously, then jerking himself with great show of impatience.
Like many other birds, the orioles were fond of huckleberries, which they ate daintily, driving their sharp beaks into a berry, and holding it under one toe while they neatly extracted the pulp, thrusting far out their long white tongues in the operation. Meal-worms the choice morsels of the bird-room came near driving the oriole wild.
The others turned on him, full of reproaches about the meal-worms and Dora, but he answered without anger. 'Shut up, he said in a whisper of imperial command. 'Can't you see it's GONE TO SLEEP? As exhausted as if they had all taken part in all the events of a very long Athletic Sports, the youthful Bastables and their friends dragged their weary limbs back across the fields.
But there's a kin' o' roost that gathers and a kin' o' moth that breeds i' the gowd and siller whan they're laid up i' the hert; and the roost's an awfu' thing for eatin' awa', and the moth-craters hae teeth as hard's the siller that breeds them; and instead o' eatin' the siller, like the meal-worms, they fa' upo' the girnel itsel' that's the heart; and afore lang the hert itsel's roostit awa' wi' the roost, and riddlet through and through wi' the moths, till it's a naisty fushionless thing, o' no use to God or man, not even to mak' muck o'. Sic a crater's hardly worth damnin'."
'Then why not try the mill-pool? he said, and we replied politely; and when he was gone to tell his man something we owned to each other that he was a trump. He did the thing thoroughly. He took us out and cut us ash saplings for rods; he found us in lines and hooks, and several different sorts of bait, including a handsome handful of meal-worms, which Oswald put loose in his pocket.
Sancho is now a very portly, and most amusing pet. Few people would guess how much character can be shown by even this poor, despised reptile when treated with real kindness, regularly fed, and never frightened or abused. I will describe what happens when Sancho is "shown to the public." Some meal-worms are thrown on the pavement near him.
With the word she plunged her hand into Oswald's jacket pocket, and next moment she was rubbing her hand like mad on her dress, and screaming almost as loud as the Baby. Then she began to laugh and to cry at the same time. This is called hysterics. Oswald was sorry, but he was annoyed too. He had forgotten that his pocket was half full of the meal-worms the miller had kindly given him.
The conservatory, dining-room, and drawing-rooms have each their little redbreast visitor; the latter is so tame he will take meal-worms from my hand, and sits on my inkstand singing a sweet, low song whilst I write. As long as each bird keeps to his domain there is peace, but woe to any intruder!
About four years ago I began to feed a toad that had found its way into the conservatory. He sat daily in one place expecting his meal-worms, and when he had snapped them up with his curious sticky tongue he would retire to some hidden nook and be invisible until the next day. Each winter he has hibernated as soon as cold weather began, and reappeared with the spring sunshine.
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