In a small village, where everyone knew each other, lived a little girl named Tina. Tina seemed like an ordinary girl, but she hid a big secret. Under the cloak of night, she would sneak out and steal little things from her neighbors: a shiny button here, a ripe fruit there. First, Tina took these things for herself, but soon she started giving them away to her friends. She thought, “They’ll never know where these gifts come from. I’m so clever!” But with every theft, a heavy weight grew in Tina’s heart. She felt like a sneaky thief, always glancing over her shoulder, afraid that someone would discover her secret.
“Tina, my dear child,” said Mrs. Green, a widow who lived next door, one evening, after Tina had been especially sneaky. “I want to give you this pretty basket of apples.” Tina smiled bright and kissed the old lady.
“Ah, how kindly your words sound, Grandma,” she replied. “But surely they would taste much better if I found them under the bed. Don’t you remember how delicious the apples were that my father picked up the other day?”
Tina had even told a lie to cover up the deeds she had done! The next morning, Tina found a nice large parcel of fresh apples waiting for her at home. She looked at it, turned it around, and when no one was looking, slipped out a small tin box that had a roughly worked pearl for a lid. Before the people in her family could discover it, the box and the apples had been made into presents for her little friends. She gave them everything during the next day and felt very happy.
But every night she could not sleep, for fear that something would come to spoil her nice little tricks. Every day, when she left her house, she felt sure that a large number of birds were getting ready to fly down upon her and pick at her secret. So she did not dare to look up towards the top of the old elm tree at the corner of the street, lest she should meet with her worst fears.
Things went on like this for some time, until one morning, about eight days after the bird scare had begun, she met a very odd little family. It consisted of a very tired-looking father, very active-looking mother, and four little children. The father held a wooden box on his knees and the mother had an enormous umbrella stretched out before her. The children played round and round their father, who plied a small saw as quickly as he could. In the middle, a broad side of the box had just been cut out, and the whole wooden cupboard had opened up into the home of an enormous flock of birds.
“Good morrow, Mr. Woodpecker,” murmured Tina. “It seems to me that I have heard the noise of your tools before, and that you were then just as busy. Have you been making cupboards for a whole week?”
“Unluckily I have, my poor little newsy,” replied the father. “We did not hope that so generous a family as the pigmy old man living under the elm would die out so soon. They seem to live only on my children!”
“Will he find a flock for all his sons-in-law?” thought Tina. “That kind of politeness deserves a little attention,” and she took some very nice honey biscuits from her pocket, and crumbled them up into very small bits.
When she turned round, the woodpecker was gone, and so was his wife. On all the monkeys. After flying away from the tops of the trees, it seemed to the little girl that they were waiting on the wall. “They insure me against unpleasant confidences, and that is all they intend to do. They will not tell anyone my whole secret,” thought she.
Many doubts and fears crept into her mind, as week grew into week. All animals that pass before the eyes of doubtful people may seem at first to be fleeing away, and this is especially true of birds. One day Tina saw on the elm tree the tallest bird of those the woodpeckers call pilferers. It is of a beautiful bright color, but the back is rough, and the chest is smooth. Its head seemed to be indicating the direction when it out its tail longer than the rest, and then took off like an arrow.
“What a fine chance I have missed,” thought Tina, “and in him an offset of those of yesterday! Well he was among them, my woodpecker, and I thought his whole family condemned him to death; perhaps he will come back and sing some of my very best songs! He’s far too yourself dear, my my child, to stop weeping long, and very, very nice. Now I’m sure you began singing just three days after you lost your grand-aunt.”
Just then the tall, handsome bird flew back again and shaded Tina with its widespread wings. To tell the truth it twisted two hesitating and slow rounds round her; but then it opened its mouth, showing a very fine yellow inside, and pretending to croak like a crow, shouted with all its might: “When a little girl happens to be a thief, all that she steals stays among her family and friends.”
Three heavy rains fell within a few hours after this; and all that miserable burden that had lowered Tina down like a whale for a whole week, floated away into the sky with the clouds. Then the little girl raised up her head, and from being so gloomy, looked up with a radiant smile.
Then she went right off to the good old lady that lived next door to ask her forgiveness. Ah! when a girl like this behaves kindly in her own little family the whole of the village come to rejoice with her, and the next child who remains lame of a yellow croaking mouth like a well-renovated parrot, and little red feathers around his beak, will have a very good reason for hoping that it will be a very long Pigmy family of his up by over(pleasure midsummer)/? It will be his fellow buyers in his coterie, and will look after him just as if he was their only treasure. It is they, for example, who will show him where it is he’ll get new friends colored feathers; for I can assure you that there is no pink on earth like the splendid brilliancy of the plumage of these birds when once they are done up by a family of little Egyptian doves.