MISTER ROBERT ROBIN SEES THE FARMER'S NEW MALTESE CAT
One fine afternoon Mister Robert Robin was down under the pasture-field
brush trying to find some brown bugs. He had caught one, but two more
got away from him, so he was beginning to feel discouraged, when he
happened to look up and see Mrs. Henrietta Partridge sitting on her nest
under a beechwood bush.
Up to that time Mister Robert Robin had not known that Mrs. Partridge
had a nest, although he had suspected it.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Partridge!" said Robert Robin, as he made a very
polite bow. "This is wonderful weather we are having!"
"Good afternoon, Mister Robin!" said Mrs. Partridge. "Yes, it is fine
weather, but for every nice day that we get, we are almost sure to have
_two_ bad, stormy days!"
"Nonsense, Mrs. Partridge!" said Robert Robin, "I have always noticed
that the more fine weather we have, the more we get! I claim that we are
going to have the nicest summer this year that we have had since the
year we had so many cherries!"
"I do hope that you are right, Mister Robin!" said Mrs. Partridge.
"Major Partridge is always joking me because I am expecting bad weather,
but I have noticed that no matter how many nice days we have, it always
turns around and rains, before it gets through!"
"Certainly! It _should_ rain, or we would all die of thirst! If no rain
came out of the sky, we would not have any cherries, and the bugs would
all be so dry there would not be any taste to them! We must have rain,
Mrs. Partridge! We must have rain!"
"Do you enjoy rainy weather, Mister Robin?" asked Mrs. Partridge.
"I like wet weather, when it is not too wet; I like dry weather when it
is not too dry; I like warm weather when it is not too warm, and I like
cool weather when it is not too cool! And I have a song for each kind
of weather!" said Robert Robin as he again started hunting for brown
bugs.
"You seem to be looking for something, Mister Robin!" said Mrs.
Partridge.
"Yes, I am hunting brown bugs!" said Robert Robin; "two of them hid
under the leaves, but there must be a few more left!"
"Stir the leaves up with your feet!" said Mrs. Partridge, "then if there
are any brown bugs under them you will be able to catch them!"
"I cannot make my feet go backwards!" said Robert Robin. "My feet insist
on hopping! I think that I must be clumsy with my legs, for even the
farmer's big rooster can scratch the ground and dig up wonderful things.
I saw him kick a worm clear through the fence!"
"He must be very strong!" said Mrs. Partridge.
"Strong! I should say he is strong! Even Percy Hawk is afraid of him,
and never goes near the little chickens when that big rooster is
watching him!"
"Major Partridge is very athletic!" said Mrs. Partridge. "He exercises a
great deal on his drum!"
"Here comes the Major now!" said Robert Robin.
"How do you do, sir!" said Major Partridge to Robert Robin.
"Good afternoon, Major!" said Robert Robin. "I have just been telling
Mrs. Partridge about how strong the farmer's big rooster was, and how he
could dig with his feet!"
"Did you ever see _me_ dig with my feet?" asked Major Partridge.
"I do not remember ever having seen you dig with your feet, Major
Partridge, but the farmer's big rooster kicked a worm clear through the
fence!"
"Kicking a little worm is nothing! Once I kicked a stone from hither to
yonder, and Billy Rabbit asked me to help him dig his next hole!"
declared Major Partridge, as he stood very straight and put his chest
out. "If you have a few moments to spare I will dig these leaves up for
you!"
Then Major Partridge began kicking the leaves in all directions, and
Robert Robin began catching the brown bugs, and Mrs. Partridge came from
her nest, and found the ripe partridge berries which Major Partridge was
uncovering, but when the Major happened to see the ripe red partridge
berries he forgot all about kicking the leaves, and he and Mrs.
Partridge ate all the berries and never invited Robert Robin to have a
berry.
"You seem to like partridge berries!" said Robert Robin.
"Yes, we are very fond of them!" said Mrs. Partridge. "They are my
favorite fruit!"
"I seldom eat them!" said Robert Robin. "My favorite fruit is a ripe red
cherry!"
"I thought that cherries were purple when they were ripe," said Mrs.
Partridge.
"Some kinds of wild cherries are purple when they are ripe, but the
cherries which grow on the trees near the farmer's house are red when
they are ripe, and they are ever so much better than wild cherries!"
said Robert Robin.
"I would like some of the farmer's ripe red cherries, but I would never
dare go so near the farmer's house. He would be almost sure to see me
and shoot me with his gun!" said Mrs. Partridge, as she got back on her
nest and snuggled her eggs.
Major Partridge heard Bob White calling to him, so he strutted over to
see what Bob White wanted, but Robert Robin felt like visiting a little
more, so he said to Mrs. Partridge:
"You were speaking about being afraid that the farmer would shoot you;
he never shoots at me, but one time he threw a stone at me when I was
picking some of the cherries to bring home to my babies. He seemed very
angry about something."
"Perhaps he did not like you to be picking his cherries," said Mrs.
Partridge.
"They were not _his_ cherries!" said Robert Robin. "They were on the
tree, and belonged to whoever got them first!"
"Men are great pests!" said Mrs. Partridge. "Old Mister Crow was telling
me that he could remember when the country was all woods, and there
were more of us partridges than there were men. Those must have been the
'good old days!'"
"That farmer seems to think that he owns all the trees, and all the
fences, and all the fields!" said Robert Robin. "The rude manner he uses
towards his horses and the way he slaps them with the straps, and the
way he shouts at them is very disgusting to me! If I were a great big
horse, I would not let a little man, only one fifth of my size, boss me
around like that farmer does his big horses!"
"Neither would I!" exclaimed Mrs. Partridge. "But I shall never let that
farmer catch me if I can help it!"
"Then he has cats around his house and barn!" said Robert Robin. "Cats
are very bad animals!"
"Yes, they are!" agreed Mrs. Partridge. "And I wish that dog of his
would stay out of our woods! He is always prowling around, smelling of
things, and I expect that he will find my nest, and mercy knows what I
would ever do then!"
"Gerald Fox bit him once!" said Robert Robin. "But why not make your
nest up in a tree, Mrs. Partridge? It is much safer from dogs!"
"My mother built hers on the ground, and what was good enough for my
mother ought to be good enough for me!" said Mrs. Partridge, and just
then Robert Robin heard his wife calling to him to come and keep watch
of the nest while she went out for lunch.
"Where have you been all day?" asked Mrs. Robin. "I have been calling,
and calling, and I was beginning to get worried for fear something
dreadful had happened to you! You must have found many good things to
eat, for your crop sticks out like a chicken's!"
"I am very sorry if I kept you waiting, my dear!" said Robert Robin.
"But Major Partridge kicked up the leaves so that I caught a whole
cropful of brown bugs. He must have made so much noise that I did not
hear you calling to me!"
"You are usually so prompt in coming when I call, that I was sure you
would have a good reason!" said Mrs. Robin. "Now I will go over and get
my lunch, but I do not care for brown bugs to-day. I will get me some
black bugs, there must be plenty of them over in Black-bug Swamp."
So Mrs. Robin went to Black-bug Swamp and found plenty of black bugs,
and on the way back she stopped near Mrs. Partridge's nest to get one or
two brown bugs for dessert.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Robin!" said Mrs. Partridge, and Mrs. Robin jumped
and looked all around, but she did not see Mrs. Partridge.
"Your husband and I have just had a nice long visit!" continued Mrs.
Partridge, and Mrs. Robin kept jumping around and trying to see who was
talking to her. But Mrs. Partridge's feathers were so nearly the color
of the leaves, that Mrs. Robin might not have seen her at all, had she
not moved a little.
"Why! Good afternoon, Mrs. Partridge! I could hear you talking to me
but I could not see you! So Mister Robin has been visiting with you! He
surely does like to visit!"
"So does Major Partridge! He will talk all day if he can coax some one
to listen to him. He is over there now visiting with Bob White. What
those two can find to talk so much about is a mystery to me! It is real
funny to listen to them! They both brag about the big things they have
done or are going to do.
"That little puff ball of a Bob White was saying the other day that he
was almost ready to whip Mister Horned Owl. You would think to hear him
talk that he was larger than Mister Owl!"
"Mister Robin is very apt to boast about himself, when he is talking to
strangers!" said Mrs. Robin.
"Major Partridge is the funniest thing!" said Mrs. Partridge. "He is
desperately afraid of snakes, but when Bob White was telling about his
going to whip Mister Owl, Major Partridge threw his chest out, and
swelled himself up, and said in a very gruff voice, 'To-morrow, I
think, if the weather is good, I shall drive all of the snakes out of
our woods!'"
"That _must_ have sounded funny!" said Mrs. Robin. "But I wish that all
the snakes were driven from the woods, they are such ugly-looking
things!"
"They are so hideous!" said Mrs. Partridge.
"I must hurry back to my eggs!" said Mrs. Robin. "My babies will begin
to hatch next week!"
"I expect that my baby partridges will all be out of the shell before
next Thursday!" said Mrs. Partridge. "I do hope that the weather stays
good! Last year the weather was so cold and wet that it was very
disagreeable!"
"How many eggs are you covering, Mrs. Partridge?" asked Mrs. Robin.
"Only twelve, this year!"
"Twelve! Mercy me! Why! Mrs. Partridge! I cannot see how you will be
able to look after so many children!"
"I do not think twelve is such a large family! Last year I had
fourteen, and every one of them grew to be as big as their father," said
Mrs. Partridge.
"The largest family I ever had was five, and one of _them_ kept falling
out of the nest!" said Mrs. Robin.
"I always take my children out of the nest as soon as they are out of
the shell! It is so much more sanitary!" said Mrs. Partridge.
"My children simply have to stay in their nest until they are ready to
fly! It is such a job to feed and care for them! They never seem to get
enough to eat!"
Just then they heard Mister Robert Robin calling. He was standing beside
the nest and saying, "Tut! Tut! Tut!--Tut! Tut! Tut!"
"Mister Robin is getting uneasy so I had better hurry home before he
does something desperate!"
Mrs. Partridge watched Mrs. Robin as she flew back to her nest in the
tall basswood tree.
"That little Mrs. Robin is a very neat sort of a little body!" she said
to herself. "I just know that she is a tidy nest keeper,--she always
looks so spick and span, herself!"
Robert Robin could hardly wait until Mrs. Robin got back to their tree.
He was in such a hurry. The moment she settled herself on the nest he
darted away across the fields, straight to where the row of cherry trees
bordered the farmer's garden.
He wanted to see if the cherries were ripe. But he was surprised to find
that the cherries were all green and hard, and were too sour to even
taste like a cherry.
"What makes the cherries so late, this year?" he thought to himself. "It
does seem to me that these trees were in bloom so many weeks ago, that
it is high time for them to be ready with their cherries!"
Robert Robin was sitting in the top of one of the farmer's cherry trees,
thinking about the cherries that ought to be ripe when he saw a cat in
the farmer's garden.
It was a big Maltese cat. It was a pretty cat, but Mister Robert Robin
could not see anything pretty about a cat, and he did not like the
looks of this one.
"I never saw this cat before!" thought Robert Robin. "The farmer must
have a new cat! I hope it is a house-cat instead of a cat that goes
prowling around the fields and woods!"
The big Maltese cat went over to the strawberry bed and lay down on some
straw. Then the farmer's wife came into the garden, and there was a
little boy with her. He was her sister's boy, and he was going to spend
the summer at the farmer's home. The boy had a tin whistle, and once in
a while he would blow upon it. The farmer's wife was thinking to
herself, "After he goes to bed to-night, I am going to hide that whistle
where he can't find it!" But she did not say a word to the little boy
about the whistle.
The little boy saw the big Maltese cat lying on the strawberry bed, and
the little boy went up close to the cat and blew his tin whistle at the
cat. The big Maltese cat did not like to hear the whistle so close to
his ears; it made his ears hurt, so he said "Meow!" and started to walk
away, and the naughty little boy laughed, and blew the whistle with all
his might. Then the farmer's wife said: "Do not tease the kitty,
Donald!"
But Donald had not been taught to do as he was told, so he blew the
whistle again and again and chased the Maltese cat across the lettuce
bed, and over two rows of radishes.
The farmer's wife shouted, "Donald! Donald!" but Donald kept blowing the
tin whistle and following the Maltese cat, but the next thing he knew
the farmer's wife took his tin whistle away from him.
Donald was so angry that he jumped right up and down on the celery
plants, and the farmer's wife said, "Look here! Young man!" and shook
Donald until he looked like a jumping jack, and Donald was so surprised
to think that anyone would dare shake him that he stopped right where he
was, and then the farmer's wife said to him:
"Now, young man! You may as well know at the very start that if you want
to be a bad little boy you will have a tough row to hoe, but if you want
to mend your ways and be a nice little boy, things will be different! I
thought I might as well make that plain to you now as later!"
Then Donald wiped his eyes on the farmer's wife's apron, and helped her
weed two whole rows of carrots, and the big Maltese cat went to sleep
under the gooseberry bush, and Robert Robin flew back to the woods and
told Mrs. Robin that the farmer had a new cat and that the farmer's wife
had a new baby that didn't like cats.