THE TOWN SPARROW

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16712, 30 January 1926, Page 14 (Supplement)

THE TOWN SPARROW

(By a Town Worker.)

Every night as the town goes home the sparrows congregate in the trees of the town churchyard. From all parts come the little feathered citizens; and you may see them clustered in the twigs as thickly as nuts on a hazel bush.

It matters not what the weather may be, the sparrows will gather in the trees at tea-time. There are not so many now as in the days when the horse was king and the sparrows never lacked a meal from the grain of his bag, but there Is still a great flock of them, and they chirp and chatter their evensong. They chirp and chatter till the chorus is like the cadence of a waterfall or a brook among many pebbles; though if you do listen attentively you can hear under-currcnts of sound which make the murmur of the town more hushed and distant.

They are cheery optimists, these, sparrows, for they seem noisiest op wet evenings, when the path is patterned with sodden leaves and the crowd goes hurrying by with its umbrellas up. There surely is a, message in their chirping for those who hury on below. So many people could be ohirpier if they tried, eyea when it rains i