morning to night. The old man had for a long time ceased to take any
notice of her crossness. He was out most of the day at work in the
fields, and as he had no child, for his amusement when he came home,
he kept a tame sparrow. He loved the little bird just as much as if
she had been his child.

When he came back at night after his hard day's work in the open air
it was his only pleasure to pet the sparrow, to talk to her and to
teach her little tricks, which she learned very quickly. The old man
would open her cage and let her fly about the room, and they would
play together. Then when supper-time came, he always saved some tit-
bits from his meal with which to feed his little bird.

Now one day the old man went out to chop wood in the forest, and the
old woman stopped at home to wash clothes. The day before, she had
made some starch, and now when she came to look for it, it was all
gone; the bowl which she had filled full yesterday was quite empty.

While she was wondering who could have used or stolen the starch,
down flew the pet sparrow, and bowing her little feathered head--a
trick which she had been taught by her master--the pretty bird
chirped and said:

"It is I who have taken the starch. I thought it was some food put
out for me in that basin, and I ate it all. If I have made a mistake
I beg you to forgive me! tweet, tweet, tweet!"

You see from this that the sparrow was a truthful bird, and the old
woman ought to have been willing to forgive her at once when she
asked her pardon so nicely. But not so.