The Story of Scraggles

The Story of Scraggles

Chapter I

How I Came to Live in a House


I was only a little baby song-sparrow, and from the moment I came out
of my shell everybody knew there was something the matter with me. I
don’t know what it could have been, for my brother and sister were
well and strong. Perhaps I was out of the first egg that was laid, and
a severe spell of cold had come and partially frozen me; or a storm
had shaken the bough in which our nest was, so that I was partly
“addled.” Anyhow, no matter what caused it, there was no denying the
fact that when I was born I was an ailing little bird, and this made
both my father and mother very cross with me. I couldn’t help being so
weak, and they might have been kinder to me; but when the other eggs
were hatched out and my brother and sister were born, nobody seemed to
care for me any more. Of course, my mother gave me something to eat
when I cried for it, but the others were so much stronger than I that
they pushed me out of the way, and succeeded many a time in getting my
share without mother’s knowing anything about it.

I was not active like the others, and when they climbed up to the edge
of the nest and stretched out their wings as if they would fly, I felt
a dreadful fear come over me. I knew I should fall to the earth if I
tried to fly. I don’t know why I felt this, but, do as I would, I
could not get rid of the horrible feeling. I tried a number of times
to overcome that sickly feeling of fear and dread, but every time I
clambered to the nest’s edge I grew dizzy and had to fall back to
prevent my pitching headlong forward. My father and mother both
scolded me, and taunted me for my cowardice; they urged me to flap my
wings more, and again and again showed me how to do it.