"The little bird with the red breast, which for his great
familiarity with men they call a Robin, if he meet any one on the
woods to go astray, and to wander he knows not whither out of his
way, of common charitie will take upon him to guide him, at least
out of the woods, if he will but follow him, as some think. This I
am sure of, it is a comfortable and sweet companion."
--_Partheneia Sacra_. By "H. A." 1533.
The early history of Robin Hood, like that of too many illustrious
characters, is veiled in obscurity. I never knew his parents nor was I
ever on speaking terms with any other member of his family. I cannot
tell whether his nursery was set in an apple tree or elm or oak or
pine, nor whether it was wind or boy or other untoward circumstance of
nestling life that cast his helpless infancy adrift upon the world. Our
earliest knowledge of Robin Hood dates from Sunday morning, June 16,
1901, when a group of Wellesley children, demurely wending their way to
Sunday School across a bit of open green, heard chirps in the grass and
picked up a baby robin, cold, hungry, bedraggled, pecked and generally
forlorn. They took him to Sunday School, muffling him in a
spick-and-span small handkerchief when his cries became too shrill and,
after this vain attempt at spiritual comfort, gave him to one of their
mammas, who, for several days, managed to sustain him on experimental
diets. Thursday morning, being about to make her summer exodus, she
cheerfully transferred her fosterling to me. Her farewell attention, a
spoonful of milk poured down his yawning throat, nearly ended his
adventures on the spot. He turned up his eyes, gasped and stiffened,
but with admirable presence of mind she balanced him on his bill, gave
him a dexterous tap in the crop and wiped up the milk from the table,
while Robin, blinking ruefully, resigned himself to a nap in my pocket.
He woke before we reached home, however, and demanded luncheon so
imperiously that I called at the nearest house and begged for bread. At
the drug store I paused again for water and, to make better connection
between this fluid and the depths of that bright orange cavity which
Robin so confidingly opened, I bought a medicine-dropper, but soon
found that a finger-tip would do as well.
Owing to these attentions by the way, Robin Hood was in an agreeable
and sociable frame of mind when he first met his adopted family, yet
all his baby graces gained for him only a mocking reception. He was
such a dumpy, speckle-breasted fluff, with funny folding legs that
could not hold him up on the perch, no tail and an utterly
disproportionate amount of bill, that it was impossible to take him
seriously, but his trustful little heart never once suspected that we
were making fun of him. He cuddled down cosily on an improvised couch
in the corner of a canary cage and devoted himself to a steady
alternation of snoozes and gorges. Everybody laughed at him--the Dryad,
who declared him a little monster of greediness and bad manners; the
chipmunks, who peered curiously into his cage whenever we left it for
sun and air on the piazza; even Joy-of-Life, who promptly sallied out
with a long iron spoon to dig him worms. For Robin Hood would keep on
ringing his dinner-bell, so to speak, even while the moistened bits of
bread were being thrust down his vociferous throat, ceasing from that
hungry clamor only when he was stuffed to the point of suffocation.
Then, with a ridiculous little grunt, he would topple off the
supporting hand back to his trundle-bed and doze like a dormouse only
to awake, in half an hour or so, an utterly famished birdling, all one
yellow gape of tremulous eagerness and outcry.
At this stage of development, living to eat, and eating to sleep, Robin
was left for several days in the care of Dame Gentle, kindest of
neighbors, pending the absence of his foster family. Here he was petted
to his babyhood's content and soon evinced a docile, affectionate
disposition. He took a dislike to his cramped canary cage, but now he
was strong enough to perch, and once placed on a chair rung by a hand
he trusted, he would sit quiet from one feeding time to the next, or
until he heard a familiar voice or step. Then, floppity-flop, down to
the floor would tumble Robin and hop joyously to meet his friend. He
soon had a soft, crooning little note for Dame Gentle, and all the
summer long, while he became a general chatterbox, kept a peculiarly
confidential accent and manner for her.
We resumed our charge on the third of July, but on the Fourth our
attention was somewhat diverted from Robin by the gift of a baby vireo,
apparently wounded by a fall from the nest. This green jewel, wild as a
windy leaf at first, was soon tamed, but his diet proved a difficult
problem. Robin Hood was only too ready to eat anything and everything,
but the tiny vireo, though calling piteously for food, turned his bill
away in sore disappointment from our various offerings. He would not
touch the crumbs of softened bread, nor Robin's favorite mess of mashed
potato and hard-boiled egg-yolk. We consulted all our bird-books, and
when we learned that the case demanded "masticated insects," we sat
down and looked at each other in despair. I generously offered to catch
any number of insects, if Joy-of-Life would do the masticating, but
little Liberty Bell finally compromised on a masticated raspberry. The
next day, mocking-bird food was procured for him, and this he swallowed
with apparent relish, but still he did not thrive.
On Sunday, the seventh, an eager troop of children brought to our door
another fallen vireo, this wee waif seeming in worse state than the
other. We named him Church Bell and cherished him as tenderly as our
ignorance might, but I hope Cornelia never had half the trouble with
her jewels that our pair of emeralds gave us. Their sharp, incessant,
querulous pipe, the utterance of pains we could not soothe, was so
trying to the nerves that, when I heard Joy-of-Life dropping books, I
would transfer the nest from her desk to mine, and when Mary came up
with a message from the grocer to find me spilling ink, she would take
the vireos down to her ironing board and drown their plaints by her
lusty voice of song. They were exquisite little creatures to see, and
as trustful with us as was Robin himself, but we never had the key to
their mystery. They would cry even in sleep and had hours of violent
trembling. We would sometimes put them in the rough, outdoor cage which
had been built for Robin, a large, square, unfloored box with roof and
walls of woven wire. He looked big and lubberly beside them, like Puck
beside Oberon and Titania, but he was always good-natured with his
dainty guests and often tried to join in the conversation as they sat,
pressed close together, on the far end of the twig which served him for
a perch, lamenting like elfin Banshees. A touch of chilly weather ended
their brief tragedy. Liberty Bell was hushed forever in the dawn of
Tuesday, the ninth, and by Wednesday noon Church Bell lay silent beside
him in the rockery which was already the burial cairn of three beloved
chickens, Microbe, Pat and Cluxley.
Meanwhile Robin Hood had been causing his share of anxiety. The
birdlings were all so tame that, in feeding them, we used to throw back
that half of the cage-top which served as lid, whereupon they would fly
up to the edge of the box and sit there in a row for dinner.
Occasionally one of the vireos would flash up into a low tree and wail
for food until we had to bring the step-ladder and fetch him down. But
it was not until Robin's winglets were fairly grown that he seemed
aware of the existence of trees. Then, suddenly, one azure afternoon,
he glanced up, cocked his head, spread his untried Icarus-plumes and
was off. In instant consternation, the whole family trooped after him,
so far as groundlings could, while he flew from tree to tree and roof
to roof. Chirping in his affectionate fashion, he peeped down upon us
with evident surprise as if to ask, "Why don't you come, too? It's much
nicer up here." Innocent of mirrors, he probably thought that we looked
just like him, or that he looked just like us, and he could not
understand why we chose to be earth-gropers when the leafy branches
swayed so delectably in mid-air. But he was such a social and kindly
little bird that, on our repeated calls, he came dipping down to us
and, without protest of a feather, let himself be shut into his cage
again.
Now we were face to face with the question that had already cast its
shadow before. Should we make a life-long captive of our Robin, who
took so pleasantly to human ways, or should we give him the perils and
delights of liberty? Mary's eyes were very wistful, and Joy-of-Life and
I reiterated to each other that our house-reared bird would be
handicapped in the greenwood struggle for life, that he was necessarily
weaker and less wary than other young robins, that there were white
kittens next door, that a gaunt, gray hunting-cat had been seen lurking
about the wire box--and yet, all the while, we knew what we must do.
"He who bends to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise."
And so, on the following day, whenever any of us were at leisure to
guard our artless adventurer from the dangers of the yard, we set the
cage-lid wide and let him go where he would. He made small use of his
privileges at first. Little runs on the lawn amused him for a while,
but he would soon mount to the piazza rail and tease the occupant of
the steamer chair for food and petting. His hops over the shelving rock
behind the house were feeble; his trips of exploration to the
neighboring trees and roofs were brief. He was hardly more than a baby
robin yet and, soon wearied, he would go back into his cage for a nap
on the familiar perch. An old maternal robin showed much interest in
this lonely, weak-legged youngster, who seemed so unthrifty about
picking up ants for himself, but he squealed with fright and flew to us
whenever she approached him. She would stand silently beside the cage
and study him through the wire while he slept, but whether she was the
matron of a robin-home for crippled children, or one of his kinsfolk
puzzling out a likeness, our bewildered fosterling, whose idea of
mother-birds was formed on Dame Gentle and ourselves, would have, from
first to last, nothing to do with her.
But one evening, July 7th, just as we had finished giving Robin Hood a
particularly good supper on the edge of his box, he suddenly soared and
left us. The house stands
"About a young bird's flutter from a wood,"
and, to our dismay, Robin Hood made thitherward
as if it were Sherwood Forest, disappeared
among the dusky treetops and returned not a
chirp to all our agitated calling. He had not
passed a night out of doors for the three weeks
that he had been under human guardianship, and
we felt that anything from a fatal chill to a fatal
hawk might befall him. But the first sound that
greeted my waking senses in the morning was
Mary's delighted, rich-toned, "Why, Robby!"
and there, on top of his cage, sat a hungry, happy
little bird, chirping eagerly and gesticulating with
one wing in a funny fashion of his own, peculiar
to seasons of excitement.
Mary--be it said in passing--was Cecilia's predecessor and for several
years, at the outset of our housekeeping, gave us a devotion only
surpassed by her devotion to her own large and lively family. They
lived but a few miles away, in the Boston suburb known as Jamaica
Plain, and Mary was subject to violent attacks of homesickness,
especially at Christmas, Easter, Hallowe'en and Thanksgiving, so that
we were usually deprived of her services when we needed them most. Once
at home, she would feast and frolic until she had made herself just
sick enough to have a pathetic pretext for prolonging her absence day
after day. When she turned up at last, her Irish wit would inevitably
forestall and frustrate any little unpleasantness that might be
awaiting her. I had mentioned at table one evening, while Mary was
changing the courses, that, lunching with our college president that
day, I had enjoyed luscious grapefruit fresh from the West Indies,
"brought her by a private hand from Jamaica." From her next truancy
Mary returned with a bulging paper bag in her arms, which, even while
my lips were parting to utter a deeply meditated reproach, she dumped
upon me with her rosy cheeks aglow and her round blue eyes all
twinkles. "Here's grapefruit for yez, brought by a private hand from
Jamaica--Plain." The family, waiting about gleefully to hear me deliver
that purposed scolding, broke into a shout of laughter, and the honors
of the day rested, as always, with the culprit.
During one of these vacations, intolerably prolonged by excuse after
excuse, our patience gave way and we availed ourselves of a sudden
chance to put in her place, as temporary substitute, a highly competent
(and expensive) Scandinavian woman. Thus we entered upon a month of
unparalleled luxury, for Gunilla proved to be a cook of the first
order. We were quite below her standard of household opulence and
elegance, as we realized when she asked us, with her invariable bearing
of respectful dignity, if we would kindly tell her where our wine
cellar was located, but she was disposed to take a rest between great
houses and provided for our simple needs with indulgent efficiency as
long as her whim lasted. Although she had broiled and roasted for a
governor, a bishop, and various magnates of industry, she turned to
scrubbing for recreation as naturally as czars and kaisers turn to
chopping wood. She beat every particle of dust, after sweeping, out of
broom and whisk, and before hanging out the clothes, she scoured the
line and every astonished clothespin. The sheets and other flat pieces
sent home from the laundry she straightway plunged into her own tubs.
Her pantry shone with obtrusive cleanliness and every dish came
glistening to the stiff, high-lustered table-cloth, where her spiced
breadsticks were cradled in fresh napkins for each dinner. Her kitchen
range fairly dazzled the eye with its sable brightness, and we were so
proud of the toothsome concoctions that came crackling and crinkling
from it as to give, under her smiling encouragement, a ruinous series
of banquets to our campus friends.
Promptly on Gunilla's departure, Mary came charging back to us, fired
with jealous wrath. Indeed, she would talk of little else but the
enormities of extravagance committed by "The Gorilla," until Robin
Hood's advent effected a welcome diversion.
For the week following his first venture into the trees Robin grew
braver and stronger every day. He had no feathered acquaintance and
kept close at home, hopping about under the rosebushes with a comical
air of proprietorship, bathing in an old flower-pot saucer in his open
cage and sitting sociably, for hours at a time, on Joy-of-Life's window
ledge or Mary's, or on my window box for winter birds. He could feed
himself by this time, but he still liked better to be fed. His table
manners showed marked improvement from his "little monster" age. He no
longer guzzled, and was becoming quite capable of picking up his own
living. Sometimes, when the ants were abundant, he would try the
experiment of self-support for half an afternoon. He was still a very
guileless birdling, and would fall sound asleep squatted down on any
sunny shelf of rock or even in the middle of a path, regardless of the
prowling tabbies that had already made way with our stonewall colony of
chipmunks. We encouraged him to frequent his safer haunts on roof and
window box by keeping fresh water and plentiful supplies of mocking
bird food ready for him there, but we had to know where he was from
dawn to dark, although the July dawns seemed to come in the middle of
the night. Morning after morning, not daring to trust our innocent even
with the early worm, I would slip on dressing-gown and slippers and be
out seeking him by three or four. And there, hopping across the already
heated concrete, would come skurrying an enthusiastic little
speckle-breast, flapping one wing in salutation and twittering
indignantly, "Morning! Breakfast! Morning! Breakfast!" as if he had
been up reading the newspaper for hours. He would ride trustfully on my
hand into the house, take his food and drink, and then contentedly go
to sleep again, perched, by preference, on top of a door.
But one Saturday morning I called Robin Hood in vain. The air, ringing
with bird-carols, held no music so precious as his hungry chirp.
Joy-of-Life was now a thousand miles away, but Mary and Dame Gentle
joined anxiously in the search. We were a distracted household when, at
eight, a ruddy young Audubon from the hilltop arrived, bringing in one
hand our overjoyed little truant, and in the other another fledgling
robin, with the merest beginnings of a tail--a waif picked up by the
roadside. Audubon reported that, as he was busy in his garden, a young
robin had flown down and alighted at his feet, fluttered there a moment
and raised the nestling cry for food. Happy Robin Hood, to have chosen
from all the boys of Wellesley the one wisest in benignant woodcraft!
Audubon slipped quietly to the ground, caught a caterpillar and held it
out to Robin, who came fearlessly to his hand and choked the furry
delicacy down. Then Audubon was sure that this was our famed fosterling
and, taking up the unsuspicious little fellow, hastened to bring him
down the hill to his home.
The new arrival from the greenwood, whom we dubbed Friar Tuck, promptly
belied that jovial memory. He was a wild, sullen, desperate little
outlaw, whose chirp was a metallic click and whose bill had to be pried
open before he would eat. Not even Robin Hood's hospitable chatter
could dispel his scared, defiant misery, and on the second morning,
unable to bear the look he turned up to the trees, we lifted the cage
lid and let him fly. We never, to our knowledge, saw Friar Tuck again,
and although we often listened for his uncanny chirp, it was not
heard--not even by Mary, whose imagination so expanded under these
Natural History studies that she would rush upstairs several times a
day to report all manner of rainbow-colored fowl that she had
discovered in the thickets. By the following winter, her Celtic vision
had soared beyond all bounds. "The cherubs are shoveling snow off the
porch of Paradise this morning," I once happened to remark, whereat
Mary, plumping down the hot coffee-pot helter-skelter, sprang open-eyed
and open-mouthed to the window, gazing ecstatically up into the white
whirl of the storm. "I see thim! I see thim! The shining little dears!
It's using their wings for shovels they are, and I see one of their
feathers afloating down in the snow."
As the summer went on, Robin Hood became the pet of the neighborhood.
Even Giant Bluff, who had moods of declaring that "what with
'Biddy-Biddy' on one side, and 'Robby-Robby' on the other, this hill
ain't fit for nothin' but females to live on," would bring tidbits to
our Speckle, who soon saved him the trouble by making frequent calls at
the front door. A guest of that house used to come to her window in the
early morning and sing him "Robin Adair," while he stood on the
opposite roof attentively listening, his head cocked and his bright eye
turned on the serenader.
But he was a loyal little soul. He spent much of his time on Dame
Gentle's piazza, and although Joy-of-Life, just before her departure,
treating him for asthma--due, the sages said, to an overhearty diet in
his inactive babyhood--had popped an unhappy worm dipped in red pepper
down his throat, yet even this Robin could forgive. It had hurt his
feelings at the time. He had withdrawn to his best-beloved branch on
his best-beloved oak and maintained an offended silence for half an
hour, but with the sting his anger went, and for days after
Joy-of-Life's disappearance, Robin would fly up to her window ledge and
chirp to the closed blinds.
During this second week of freedom, his experience was enlarged by a
thunderstorm, which he contemplated with lively astonishment from
within my window, but the next morning worms were plentiful, and there,
to Giant Bluff's inordinate pride, was Robin trotting about the lawn
like an old hand, turning up bits of turf with a grubby little bill and
actually getting his own breakfast.
A day or two later our fledgling began to sow wild oats. Thursday
afternoon Mary missed him and, hunting for him beyond the cairn, which
she designated "The Pets' Cemetery," found him lending charmed
attention to a big, red-breasted robin, who dashed off so guiltily that
he bumped himself against the fence. All Friday our Speckle was shy and
wild, flying about the edge of the wood with this first friend of his
own feather, but he came to perch on the piazza rail at twilight, as
usual, keeping us company while we took our open-air dinner, and
responding to our blandishments with a drowsy chirp. When he soared to
choose his slumber-spray in one of the tall trees before the house, we
strained our eyes to follow him into the shadows and called up laughing
counsels and good-nights as long as he would answer. But the next
morning an evil-eyed black cat sat on our steps and, hour after hour,
no Robin Hood appeared. Mary spent most of the forenoon in the woods
and, after luncheon, we both went calling through a leafy world with a
Babel of chirps about us. "Thim birds, they're just a-mocking me,"
wailed Mary. But suddenly we both heard, hurrying along the air, that
dear, unmistakable baby squawk, and in an instant more our own little
Speckle came plumping down on my head, where he rode triumphantly into
the house, flapping his funny right wing all the way and gasping with
speed and excitement. He had perhaps been in a fight, for one side of
his guileless face was badly pecked. Throughout the afternoon he
devoured one full meal after another, allowing ten-minute siesta
intervals, with all the enthusiasm of a prodigal son, and then he must
have a bath, and then he must be held and petted, and all the
while--yep, yep, yep! flop, flop, flop!--he was trying to tell the
story of his terrible adventures. Whatever they were, he was a reformed
little robin, and spent the Sunday partly on my window box, where he
would play for fifteen minutes together with the nutshells that the
chickadees had emptied, and partly under a leafy canopy in the oak
within easy squirrel-leap beyond, not having a chirp to chirp to any
bad bird who would lead him into mischief.
For a fortnight longer Robin was our daily joy. It seemed to make us
intimates of the woods to hear, as we were walking there, the hail of a
familiar voice from overhead and look up to see our own small Speckle
peeping down at us from some breezy twig against the blue. For he soon
recovered from his penitence and went sailing through the trees on ever
longer voyages of discovery, being often out of call for two or three
hours at a time. But he was always on the window box, where no other
robin ever came, in the early morning from half-past three on to seven,
overflowing with conversation and insisting on intelligent replies to
his remarks. At intervals throughout the day, too, I would hear a soft
thud on the box, followed by a chirp-p-p and the flap-p-p of a very
impatient and business-like little wing. On these occasions Robin Hood
was quite too much occupied with his greenwood affairs to feed himself,
and I must needs drop book or pen and cram refreshment down his
importunate yellow gullet till it could hold no more. Then he would hop
across to his Japanese water-cup, take a dozen eager dips, wipe his
bill first on one side, then the other, on the edge of the box, and
then, flapping his wing for good-by, sweep off again. In the middle of
every forenoon and, during the hottest weather, of the afternoon as
well, he alighted on his cage and called imperiously to Mary to bring
him fresh water for his bath. We shut him in during this and during his
sun-baths, since he enjoyed these rites so much as to be even more than
commonly oblivious of cats.
On the evening of July 24 the mercury "dropped on us," as Mary said,
some thirty degrees, and a drenching rain fell all night--a new
experience for Robin Hood, who appeared at my window Thursday morning,
a draggled little vagabond. Had there been no wise robin at hand to
teach him how to take the oil from his back pockets and convert his
airy fluff into a tight-fitting waterproof? He was glad to come in out
of the wet and spent the forenoon in Mary's kitchen, letting her fondle
him as she would, but flying with alarm from the proffered caresses of
market-man and grocer-boy. In the course of the next few days, however,
he began to protest a little when even his old friends stooped to take
him up. He would hop backward, snapping his bill, but he seldom flew
and, if the hand did not remain closed upon him, but left him perching
free on wrist or finger, he was entirely content.
On August 8 we did our Robin wrong. An expected dinner guest had
expressed a desire to see him and, as by this time he was spending his
nights, presumably, in a far-off Robin roost, for which he sometimes
started early in the afternoon, Mary caught him during the absorbed
ecstasy of his sun-bath and shut him into the cage. This was still a
favorite resort of his, and he did not object in the slightest until a
young robin playmate with whom he was in the habit of flying to the
roost whistled for him from a scarlet oak. Then Robin chirped to us to
let him out, growing frantic with excitement as we, hitherto so prompt
to obey his behests, made no move for his release. He called and called
again, beating about the cage and even breaking into a song of wild
entreaty. Shame-faced and conscience-stricken, we yet put him off,
expecting our guest minute by minute. It was nearly seven when regrets
were telephoned, but by that time Robin was in a panic and smote our
hearts by the terror with which he fluttered back from us as we bent
over the cage.
The instant the lid was raised he whirred up to the scarlet oak, where
his faithful chum still waited, but before their belated departure
Robin flew down to Dame Gentle's window and told her all about it, and
then over to Giant Bluff's piazza, where he rehearsed his grievances
again in a scolding chirp never heard from him before.
We closed the house on the fourteenth and went away, unforgiven by
Robin Hood, who has never, so far as I know, come to human hand since
Mary's clasp betrayed him to captivity. During those six days we caught
flying glimpses of our estranged fosterling, easily recognized from a
distance by the two white feathers in his tail, and a few times he
started, by sheer force of habit, to hop across the road to us from
Dame Gentle's, but, half-way over, he would turn sharply about, give an
angry little yep, and hop back again.
When we reopened the house in late September, not even Dame Gentle had
recent news of Robin Hood, and all the winter long we carried a
sorrowful sense of broken friendship. We were anxious about our
hand-reared birdling, too, hardly daring to hope that he could survive
the perils of migration. What a desperate adventure it seemed!
"Who hath talked to the shy bird-people,
And counseled the feathered breast
To follow the sagging rain-wind
Over the purple crest?"
But on the sixth day of March Robin Hood came home. There had been a
baby blizzard the night before and, as we returned from college in the
early afternoon, I noticed birdtracks in the light snow that still
mantled the piazza rail.
"See those prints, right where Robin Hood used to sit and watch us take
our supper!" I exclaimed, a wild hope knocking at my heart, but
Joy-of-Life thought it a case of hungry tree sparrows and, with her
especial tenderness for the plucky, one-legged fox sparrow that had
consorted with them all winter, went in to find them a choice handful
of scraps. But when, a few minutes later, I entered my chamber, there
outside his accustomed window, on the feeding-box now drifted over with
snow, sat a great, plump, glossy redbreast, staring into the room with
Robin's own bright eyes and cocking his head to listen to our welcome.
He fluttered back to the nearest tree, when we opened the window,
indicating that he had learned a thing or two, in the gossip of the
long aerial journeys, about the human race, nor did he ever again enter
the house nor let us touch him, but he kept close by, for weeks,
perching in his old familiar places on roof and rail and window-ledge,
hopping in our walks and gamboling in our eyes. Out in the open, he
would come within a few inches of us and there take his stand and chirp
the confidences that we would have given all our dictionaries to
comprehend. He was such a tall, stately robin, with such an imposing
air of travel and experience as he stood erect, swelling his bright
breast with the effort to relate his Winter's Tale, that Joy-of-Life
rechristened him Lord Bobs.
In course of time our gallant fledgling appeared in company with a
mate, most disappointing to our romantic anticipation,--a faded
crosspatch old enough to be his grandmother, a very shrew who scolded
him outrageously whenever she saw him lingering beside us. She told him
we were ogres, alligators, everything that was horrible and dangerous,
and threatened to peck out his last pin-feather unless he flew away
from us at once. A selfish old body she was, too, monopolizing the
rock-bath, as if she were taking a cure for rheumatism, whole hours at
a time, while Robin Hood, hot and dusty, waited on her pleasure in the
drooping branches above. But despite her shrill remonstrances, he would
still visit the window box, perching on Downy Woodpecker's marrow-bone
for an opera stage and trilling his matins and vespers to our delighted
ears. We were as proud of Robin Hood's singing as if we had taught him
ourselves. Between his carols our troubadour would take a little
refreshment, trying in turn Nuthatch's lump of suet, Bluejay's rinds of
cheese, Junco's crumbs and his own mocking-bird food, or quaffing rain
water from Chickadee's nutshell cups. He would sometimes hop to the
sill and, close against the glass, watch all the doings in that world
which lay about him in his infancy. We looked forward to an hour when
he might bring his own little speckles to play, as he had loved to
play, with the empty nutshells, but Mrs. Robin hustled him off to the
woods for the nesting season and we were never able after that first
spring to distinguish him with certainty among our robin callers. None
the less he had made the summer and all summers happier for us by his
gracious though guarded pardon for our unkindness.
"Truth never fails her servant, sir, nor leaves him
With the day's shame upon him,"
and even over wild-bird tradition and matrimonial tyranny the truth of
our love for Robin Hood, its single lapse forgiven, had prevailed.