"Tut, tut," said Mr. Sparrow, "it isn't right to gossip about one's neighbors." Then in a low tone he added, "If you don't know anything good to say about a person like Mrs. Mocker, it shows you do not know her very well." Mr. Mocker heard what they were saying about his wife, and he fell to mimicking them in a low key till the gossipers all flew off. Just then a red-shafted flicker called to his next neighbor, the humming-bird, with a loud, harsh cry, which so frightened the little hummer that he dropped straight down from the bough he was sitting on, right into the lap of a rose that happened to be spreading her skirts below. [Illustration: Flicker.] "You needn't be afraid of me," said the flicker, "that is my natural voice. I was going to tell you how I scared an old lady in the white house yonder. I flew up to the gable under the eaves and began hammering away with all my might on the house-side. You know my hard, stout bill is my hammer. It went 'rap, rap,' just like a man with a hatchet. "Out came the old lady, and she looked all around the house, thinking to see a burglar, I suppose, and then she went back and locked the door. Soon I began to hammer again. She came out, and this time she looked straight at me and said, 'Shoo, you old bird!' Of course I flew away. All I wanted was to make a hole in the roof over the attic, so I could have a warm place to sleep in this winter." "I don't think it was kind of you to scare an old lady," said the hummer, sitting still in the lap of the pink rose. "That is the same lady who left her pampas plumes standing in the yard when other people had cut theirs down, on purpose that my wife might have the feathers and tufts to line her nest with. They are splendid to make a cradle of, they and the spider's web. It was that same old lady's daughter who put the umbrella over our nest in the rain storm. "That young lady thinks she can catch me. I go and sit on a low bush and doze in the sunshine, showing off my gorget as well as I can, when along comes the young lady. I blink away, and she thinks I am fast asleep. As long as her hands are behind her I know I am safe, and I let her get close to me. But the minute she puts out her hand to catch me, I am off, and you ought to see how disappointed she looks." "That is a very long story for such a small bird as you are," said Mr. Flicker to the hummer. "I could tell one twice as long." Mr. Flicker was beginning his yarn all about how he scared some small boys just at sundown in a grove. He said he flew up quickly, and his flame-colored wing linings looked so much like fire that the boys ran away. Just then Mr. Mocker set up such a noise, squalling like a chicken when it is caught, that the birds all flew away to their houses, all but the hummer. He wasn't afraid of a chicken, and he sat still in the lap of the sweet rose. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXV. AT THE GARDEN PARTY.