|TO be indignant is to be angry in a good cause. If you lose your
temper and give way to anger because things do not suit you, you are
not indignant; you are simply angry. But if anger wells up in your heart
because of harm or injustice which is done to some one else, or even to
yourself, then you become indignant.
Farmer Brown's boy had spent all his spare time down in the garden
watching Bob White and his family. In fact, he had been there so much
that all the Bob Whites had come to look on him as harmless if not
actually a friend. They just didn't pay him any attention at all,
but went about their business as if he were nowhere about. And their
business was ridding that garden of bugs and worms and seeds of weeds in
order to fill their stomachs. What tickled Farmer Brown's boy was that
the bugs and worms of which they seemed the most fond were the very ones
which did the most harm to the growing plants.
Over beyond the garden was a field of wheat. You know from wheat comes
the flour of which your bread is made. Now there is a certain little bug
called the chinch-bug which is such a hungry rascal that when he and a
lot of his kind get into a field of wheat, they often spoil the whole
crop. They suck the juices from the plants so that they wilt and die.
Farmer Brown's boy had heard his neighbors complaining that chinch-bugs
were very bad that year, and he knew that they must be by the looks of
the wheat on the farms of his neighbors. But Farmer Brown's wheat
looked as fine as wheat could look. It was very plain that there were no
chinch-bugs there, and he often had wondered why, when they were so bad
in the fields of his neighbors.
Farmer Brown's boy noticed that Bob White and his family spent a
great deal of time in the wheat-field. One day he noticed Bob picking
something from a stem of wheat. He went over to see what it might be.
Of course Bob scurried away, but when Farmer Brown's boy looked at that
wheat-plant he found some chinch-bugs on it. Then he knew what Bob had
been doing. He had been picking off and eating those dreadful little
bugs. And he knew, too, why it was that their wheat-field was the best
for miles around. It was because Bob White and his family hunted for and
ate those bugs as fast as they appeared.
“Hurrah for you! You're the greatest little helpers a farmer ever had!”
cried Farmer Brown's boy, and hurried off to tell Farmer Brown what he
had found out.
So the summer passed, and the cool crisp days of autumn came. The wheat
had been harvested and the vegetables gathered and stored away. Jack
Frost had begun to paint the maple trees red and yellow, the garden
was bare, and the stubble in the wheat-field a golden brown. The little
feathered people who do not like cold weather had flown away to the
sunny Southland, led by Ol' Mistah Buzzard. Striped Chipmunk, Chatterer
the Red Squirrel, and Happy Jack the Gray Squirrel were busy from
morning till night storing away seeds and nuts on which to live through
the long cold winter. These were glorious days, and Bob White loved
every one of them.
“Son,” said Farmer Brown one morning, “those Bob Whites must be fat with
the good living they have had. Seeing that we have fed them off the farm
all summer, don't you think that it is their turn to feed us? I think
broiled Bob White on toast would taste pretty good. The shooting season
begins next week, so I suppose you will get out your gun and shoot a few
of those Bob Whites for us.” There was a twinkle, a kindly twinkle in
his eyes as he spoke.
But Farmer Brown's boy didn't see that twinkle. His face grew red. A hot
anger filled his heart. He was indignant. He was very indignant to think
that his father should ever hint at such a thing. But he didn't forget
to be respectful.
“No, sir!” said he. “I wouldn't shoot one of them for anything in the
world! They don't owe us anything; we owe them. If it hadn't been for
them, we wouldn't have had half a crop of wheat, and our garden would
have been just as poor as those of our neighbors. I'm not going to shoot
'em, and I'm not going to let any one else shoot 'em if I can help it,
so there!”