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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l! 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 ba.s.swood 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 ap.r.o.n, 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.

CHAPTER III

ROBERT ROBIN AND WIDOW BLUNT'S STUFFED OWL

It was a dismal, rainy day. Long before morning, the storm had begun, and when the faint light had at last dawned in the east, the rain still pattered down on the leaves of Mister Robert Robin's big ba.s.swood tree, and fell in great drops from their tips. Robert Robin did not like the weather. He had not even sung his "Hurry up!" song, and the rain had pelted down so furiously that his every feather was wet, and he was soaked to his shivering skin.

Mrs. Robin was afraid that the raindrops would fall inside the nest and wet the eggs, so she kept her wings spread out so far that her shoulders ached.

"It is very uncomfortable, sitting in this cramped position!" she said to Robert Robin. "I am afraid that I will get the rheumatism in my joints!"

"Let me cover the eggs for you!" said Robert Robin.

"With your feathers all wet?" exclaimed Mrs. Robin. "I am trying to keep the eggs dry and warm!"

"Let me try it once!" said Robert Robin.

"No! Thank you, dear! your intentions are good, but you are so clumsy you would be almost sure to break one of the eggs, and to-day is the day they will hatch!"

"I wish that it would stop raining!" said Robert Robin.

"Why not sing your 'Dry Weather' song?" asked Mrs. Robin. "The rain might stop coming if it heard you singing your 'Dry Weather' song!"