The Neighbor in Red

The Cardinal belongs especially to the South, but he does not stay where he is supposed to belong; no, not by any means. One cold day in December, when the garden was a sheet of snow and ice, the man went out to cut down an old peach tree that he had condemned to death.

In the first place, it was a useless old tree, half rotten, and had long since ceased to bear peaches. In the second place, it had shaded a part of the garden during the past summer and about ruined a lot of tomato plants. There were several new peach trees along the line of the north fence where they could not shade the garden, and so the old tree would never be missed. The man raised the ax and struck the tree a sounding whack that made the old trunk shiver.

Whir-r-r! went something out of the top of the broken, rotten end of the stub. The man looked in surprise. It was an English sparrow. The scared bird had built himself a nest in a hole that either he had found or burrowed there.

Talk about feather beds! The inside of that hole was just packed with chicken feathers. That sparrow must have been a week or two picking them up, one by one, about the country, for the man does not keep chickens. It was certainly too bad to be driven out of doors in such weather, for it was very cold, and the sun was well along in the western sky.

How would you like it to be turned out of bed and house on a cold winter’s afternoon to hunt any old place you could find? Well, just about that time the cardinal came along. I do not know whether he understood how the sparrow had been misused or not; but, anyway, he made some remarks that the man thought were certainly meant for him.

If you do not know it, let me tell you that the cardinal can whistle, in a startling way, sounds that seem almost like words. This time the cardinal seemed to be angry. If he understood what had happened, he had reason to be. “Look here! look here!” whistled the cardinal.

Of course the man did look. But Mr.

Cardinal did not seem at all afraid to talk up to the man. The bird came a little nearer, tipped his head to one side, and flirted his tail. Then he whistled again.

“See here! see here!” “Well,” said the man to himself, “I guess I have stirred up a bit of a tempest. I certainly did not mean any harm to the bird fraternity.” The man stepped back a pace or two, and paused again to hear the cardinal whistle once more.

This time the words seemed somewhat different. “You fear! you fear!” At this the cardinal whisked about and sounded a “chip” of seeming indignation. “Come here! come here!” screamed the cardinal.

But the man was of a peaceable nature, and did not intend to quarrel with any bird, much less the cardinal. And so he begged to be excused. The man has wondered since if the cardinal was so cross about the sparrow, or if he was merely objecting to the noise that the ax had made when it struck such a sounding whack on the old dried peach tree.

But however it was, the cardinal did not seem to hold his resentment very long. That night was one of the coldest nights of winter, and the next morning the garden looked more frosty than ever. Nevertheless, the cardinal was on hand quite early. “Good cheer! good cheer!” he whistled.

The man heard it before he sat down to breakfast, opened the door, and looked out. “Good cheer! good cheer!— three cheers! three cheers!” whistled the cardinal, and went sailing away, to disappear beyond the garden fence. “Just look at the courage of him,” said the man softly to himself. “That clear, merry whistle on a cold morning like this puts courage into even a man.”

Again came the notes of the cardinal. He was sounding his rich, rolling, rollicking melody. “Three cheers! three cheers! three cheers!” Cold weather did not make him gloomy; he was not a particle worried; he was singing.

What a lesson to the caretaker! O, to be in such spirit as the cardinal! O, to make as well of things as he does! O, to face drear aspects with a heart as glad as his, and a tune as cheery!