dy for breakfast. But wasn't it for all the world like children with
empty little stummicks an' chatterin' tongues? When Mis' Pearson
complained of me an' the noise, I didn't take it kind of her. Take food
from the table? Course I did. But it was my own lunch, that I'd a right
to go hungry for ef I wanted to, an' nobody's affair.

"But I tell you, ma'am, one day--it was that day Mr. McCaleb sent me
that printed notice, an' everybody on my floor see it comin' an' knew it
was something shameful an' legal--that evening I tried honestly to keep
'em out. I pulled down the shade--it was a bitter cold day, a regular
blizzard blowing--an' I sat with my back to the window an' tried to read
my Bible while them birds jest shrieked themselves hoarse outside. Well,
guess where that Bible opened to! 'Yea, the sparrow hath found a house
and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young.' That
was a message, ma'am, a straight, sure message. I opened the window an'
scattered their bread-crumbs out on the sill, which I had made jest the
least bit wider for them--that's what he calls 'defacin' the buildin'.'
After that, I told Mr. McCaleb flat-footed that if he had the heart to
starve them innocent critturs in the dead o' winter, it was more than I
had. I told him if he'd wait till spring, I'd promise never to open the
window that faces south after that; but till they could shift for
themselves, I'd shift for them. That's all. Thank _you_, ma'am, for
letting me have my say."

She smiled into the president's soft eyes, and rose, looking like a
trim, saucy, gray-haired sparrow about to take flight. The president's
smile started back to her, but on the way it had to pass the recording
secretary, the visiting committee, and the Rev. Alexander McCaleb. By
the time it had made the journey it was shorn of half its sympathetic
understanding.

"You admit then, Mrs. Walker, that you have broken the rule against
having pets in the room?" the president asked with gravity. "It is a
necessary rule. Fancy what would be the condition of the place if a lady
in No. 117 had a tame sparrow, a gentleman in No. 120 a monkey, his
neighbor a spaniel, the lady across the way a cat, and so on! I
appreciate--we all do, and Mr. McCaleb more than all of us--how tender
and charitable a nature yours is, but"--she looked at the recording
secretary to gain courage--"but we simply must enforce the rules. I know
so good a housekeeper as you must have been wi