Why this pair of Robins chose to build so near the Sparrows, nobody
knows. It was not at all like Robins to do so, for they are quite
careful how they bring up their children. One would expect them to
think how likely the little Robins would be to grow up rude and
quarrelsome.
However, there their nest was, not the length of a beanpole from those
of two pairs of Sparrows. When the nestlings were hatched, they
listened all day to what the Sparrows were saying and looked at what
they were doing. They heard and saw many things which Mr. and Mrs.
Robin did not like. But there was no helping it then, and all that
their parents could do was to try to bring them up to be good little
birds, and do as they had been told, and not as they had seen naughty
children do.
It did make a difference in the behavior of the children, however, and
after they left the nest this showed very plainly. When they were old
enough to go outside the yard in which they had been hatched, they
went to the place next door. There were many fowls on this place, and
several Hens in coops with young Chickens around them. The father and
mother left the young Robins in safe places while they went to hunt
Worms in the newly hoed garden. Two children, a brother and a sister,
were half hidden under the drooping branches of a large gooseberry
bush.
They had been there for some time, when the sister said, “Just see
what lots of good, clean food that Hen and her Chickens have. Don’t
you wish you had some of it?”
“Um-hum!” answered the brother. “What a pretty yellow it is. I just
know it is good!”
Neither of them spoke again for a long time. Indeed, the brother had
begun to settle his head down on his shoulders and slide the thin lids
over his eyes, when his sister said, “If you were a Sparrow, you’d get
some.”
“Well, I’m not a Sparrow,” he answered, “and so I shall have to go
without.”
He was almost cross to his dear little sister, but perhaps one could
partly excuse him. He saw that there was much more than the Chickens
could eat, and that it would lie there spread out on the board until
they had spoiled it all by trampling it with muddy feet. Now it was
lovely, clean, sweet corn-meal mush. Besides, he was becoming
dreadfully hungry. It was fully ten minutes, you know, since he had
been fed anything.
The little sister kept still for a while. Her mother had taught her
that it does not always pay to talk too much. At last she asked, “Do
you suppose those tiny bits of Chickens know the difference between a
Sparrow and a Robin?”
Her brother opened his eyes very wide, and stretched his head up so
that one could see the black and white feathers under his bill. He was
almost full-grown. “I’ve a good mind to try to fool them,” he said.
“You see, the Hen can’t reach the board where the food is.”
“I dare you to!” cried his sister, who really should have been his
brother, she was so brave.
“All right,” he answered. “Only you come too.”
“I will,” she said. “But let’s wait until Father and Mother are
looking the other way.”
Twice they started out and came back because their parents were
looking. At last they made a dash and were by the board.
“Stand aside!” said the brother, talking as nearly like a Sparrow as
he could. “Let us have some of this!”
“Who are you?” asked the Chickens, while the old Hen
cluck-cluck-clucked and strutted to and fro in the coop. Every little
while she stuck her head out as far as she could reach, and her neck
feathers spread around in a funny, fat way against the slats of her
coop.
“Go away!” she scolded. “Go right away! That is not your mush! You are
not my Chickens! Go right home to your mother! Cr-r-r-r-r!” She said
this last, you know, because she was getting so angry that she could
say nothing else.
The fowls behind the netting of the poultry-yard all came to see what
was going on, and chattered about it in their cackling way. “Send
them off!” they cried. “Send them off! The idea of their trying to
take food from the Chickens!” The Cocks looked particularly big and
fierce. Still, there is not much fun in looking big and fierce behind
a wire netting, when the people whom you want to scare are in front of
it.
The young Robins were dreadfully frightened, but having feathers all
over their face, it did not really show. Neither one was willing to be
the first to start away, and they didn’t like to speak about it to
each other for fear of being overheard. You know, if you can keep
other people from finding out that you are scared, you may end by
scaring them, and that was exactly what the Robins meant to do.
“Get out of our way!” said they. “Don’t brush against us so again! If
you were not young, we wouldn’t have stood it this time. When you have
feathers you may know better.”
Then the little Chickens were very badly scared indeed. They backed
away as quickly as they could, and crawled in beside their mother. She
told them to go back; that the Robins couldn’t hurt them, and that she
was ashamed to have them act so Chicken-hearted.
“Let us get under your wings!” they said. “Please let us get under
your wings!” And they followed, peeping, after her, as she marched to
and fro in the narrow coop. Sometimes they got so near her feet that
she almost knocked them over, and at last they quite gave up trying to
cuddle down under her, and got together in little groups in the back
part of the coop.
“Had enough?” asked the brother at last.
“Yes, indeed,” answered his sister. “I can’t swallow any more now.
I’m just making believe because you are not through.”
“All right!” said he.
He turned to the Chickens. “Now you may come,” he said. “But another
time get out of our way more quickly.” Then they turned their backs
and hopped off. They didn’t want to try flying, because that would
show how very young they were.
“We did it,” exclaimed those two naughty children. “Did you ever see
such little Geese as those Chickens? But oh, what if our parents
should find it out?”
“See here,” chirped their mother, who could not speak very plainly
because she had two large Earthworms hanging in wriggling loops from
her bill, “Here is a lovely lunch for you.”
“Give it to Brother,” said the little sister. “He always wants more
than I.”
“Oh, no. Give it to Sister,” said he. “I don’t mean to be selfish.”
“You shall both have some,” said their mother, tucking a large Worm
down each unwilling throat. “Little birds will never be big birds
unless they eat plenty of the right kind of food. I will bring you
more.”
When she was gone they looked at each other. “I just can _not_ eat
another billful,” said the sister.
“And I won’t!” said the brother. After a while he added, “Is there any
of that mush sticking to my bill?”
“No,” said the sister. “Is there any on mine?”
They did not feel at all sure that their mother would have let them
eat so much mush if she had been asked. They wondered if it would make
them sick. They began to think about the stomach-ache, and felt sure
that they had one--that is to say, two--one apiece, you know.
Over in the garden, Mrs. Robin said to her husband, “Do you know what
those children have done? It was a very ill-bred, Sparrow-like trick.
They scared the little Chickens away, and ate all they could of their
mush. I am dreadfully ashamed of them, but I shall pretend I did not
see it.”
“Make them eat plenty of Worms,” suggested Mr. Robin.
“Just what I am going to do,” answered his wife. “It won’t really hurt
them to overeat for once in their lives, and it will punish them very
well.”
That was why Mr. and Mrs. Robin worked so especially hard all morning,
and made so many trips in under the gooseberry bush. The two young
Robins who were there kept insisting that they didn’t need any more,
and that they really couldn’t eat another Worm. After they said this,
Mrs. Robin always looked sharply at them and asked, “What have you
children been doing? Young birds should always want all the Worms
their parents can bring them.”
The little Robins were not brave enough to tell what they had done.
You know it often takes more courage to confess a fault than it does
to scare people. So whenever their mother said this they agreed to eat
one more Worm apiece, and choked and gulped it down. It was a dreadful
morning for them.
Inside the Chicken-coop the old Hen was trying to settle down again,
and the Chickens were talking it over.
“Wasn’t it dreadful?” asked one. “I didn’t know that Robins were so
fierce.”
“Mother said that we shouldn’t be afraid of them,” cried another, “but
I guess she’d be afraid her own self if she wasn’t in that coop. She’d
be ’fraider if she was little, too.”
“I’m glad they didn’t eat it all,” said a third Chicken. “When do you
suppose they’ll come again?”
“Every day,” said another, a Chicken who always expected bad things to
happen. “Perhaps they will come two times a day! Maybe they’ll even
come three!”
But they didn’t. They didn’t come at all. And they never wanted
corn-meal mush again.