Of course, there was a time, once, when Jolly Robin was just a
nestling himself. With two brothers and one sister--all of them, like
him, much spotted with black--he lived in a house in one of Farmer
Green's apple trees.
The house was made of grass and leaves, plastered on the inside with
mud, and lined with softer, finer grass, which his mother had chosen
with the greatest care.
But Jolly never paid much attention to his first home. What
interested him more than anything else was food. From dawn till dark,
he was always _cheeping_ for something to eat. And since the other
children were just as hungry as he was, those four growing babies kept
their parents busy finding food for them. It was then that Jolly Robin
learned to like angleworms. And though he ate greedily of insects and
bugs, as well as wild berries, he liked angleworms best.
Jolly and his sister and his brothers could always tell when their
father or their mother brought home some dainty, because the moment
the parent lighted upon the limb where the nest was built they could
feel their home sink slightly, from the added weight upon the branch.
Then the youngsters would set up a loud squalling, with a great
craning of necks and stretching of orange-colored mouths.
Sometimes, when the dainty was specially big, Mr. or Mrs. Robin would
say, "_Cuck! cuck!_" That meant "Open wide!" But they seldom found it
necessary to give that order.
Somehow, Jolly Robin managed to eat more than the rest of the
nestlings. And so he grew faster than the others. He soon learned a
few tricks, too. For instance, if Mrs. Robin happened to be sitting on
the nest, to keep her family warm, when Mr. Robin returned with a
lunch for the children, Jolly had a trick that he played on his
mother, in case she didn't move off the nest fast enough to suit him.
He would whisper to the rest of the children. And then they would
jostle their fond parent, lifting her up above them, and sometimes
almost upsetting her, so that she had hard work to keep from falling
off the nest.
Mrs. Robin did not like that trick very well. But she knew that Jolly
would not annoy her with it long. Indeed, he was only eleven days old
when he left his birthplace and went out into the wide world.
You see, the young folk grew so fast that they soon more than filled
the house. So there was nothing their parents could do but persuade
them to leave home and learn to fly.
One day, therefore, Mr. Robin did not bring his children's food to the
edge of the nest and drop it into their mouths. Instead, he stood on
the limb a little distance away from them and showed them a plump
angleworm.
The sight of that dainty was more than Jolly Robin could resist. He
scrambled boldly out of the nest; and tottering up to his father on
his wobbling legs, he snatched the tempting morsel out of his proud
parent's bill.
Jolly never went back to the nest after that. The next day Mrs. Robin
coaxed the other children from home in the same fashion. And though it
may seem a heartless act, it was really the best thing that could have
happened to Jolly and his sister and his brothers.
You see, they had to learn to fly. And so long as they stayed in the
nest they could never learn a difficult feat like flying.