Gabriel Chipmunk's pockets were in his cheeks, and when he had both pockets full of cherry pits, his head looked larger than all the rest of him. Billy Rabbit saw him running through the woods. "Who on earth is that?" said Billy Rabbit to himself. "That big head is running around without anybody! Help! Help!" and Billy Rabbit ran home and told Mrs.

Rabbit that he had just seen a terrible head running through the woods.

When Gabriel Chipmunk got home he dumped his two pocketsful of nice cherry pits into his granary bins, and called Mrs. Chipmunk to come and help him, and both of them worked as fast as they could and in a very short time all the nice cherry pits from under Robert Robin's big ba.s.swood tree were safe and snug in Mister Gabriel Chipmunk's granary under his old home stump.

Both of them were so tired that they went to bed and slept until the next morning.

Towards night Mister Robert Robin perched on the top of his big ba.s.swood and sang his "Cherry Song," and while he was singing he heard some one coming through the woods. It was the farmer's hired man. He was going to get some of the cherry pits to plant in a box.

He scuffed his feet among the leaves, and looked, and looked, but he could not find even just one cherry pit.

"Where did all those cherry pits go?" he asked himself. "There was forty-'leven hundred of 'em here this forenoon, and now they are as scarce as hen's teeth! Some bird must have picked up every last one of them! I wouldn't have cared, only I was so sure about their bein' cherry pits, and the farmer hates to get beat in an argument--but now I'll never hear the last of fryin' them mittens."

The hired man climbed over the fence and stood still. He was listening to Robert Robin's cherry song.

"Cherry sweeter!

Cherry sweeter!

Cherry sweet!

Cherry sweet!

Call Peter-- Call Peter!

Call Pete, Call Pete!

Cherry sweet!

Cherry sweeter!

Cherry sweet!"

"That robin is a fine singer, and he is singing about cherries all right!" said the hired man, "and if I knew as much as he does about what became of those cherry pits, I could go right to 'em, this minute!"

CHAPTER VI

MISTER ROBIN DECIDES TO TAKE A VACATION

The days sped by, and the baby robins grew so fast that very soon the four filled the nest chock-full, and so one day Robert Robin was not much surprised to see two of them standing up in the nest.

"Sit down at once, children!" he said. "You might fall out and frighten your mother!"

But the next day little Sheldon hopped out of the nest and stood beside it, and Elizabeth insisted upon standing so near the edge of the nest that Mrs. Robin was very nervous for fear she would upset the nest and spill Montgomery and Evelina to the ground.

"Do sit down, child!" said Robert Robin. "Your mother does not like to have you stand up in the nest that way!" But Elizabeth gave a great jump and in a moment she was standing on a big limb fluttering her wings, and getting ready to fly. Then little Sheldon gave a great jump and flew clear into the maple tree. Mrs. Robin was very much excited, and was screaming loudly, and Robert Robin was saying, "Tut! Tut!" and jerking his tail up and down.

Suddenly Evelina stood up and jumped and the nest went rolling over and over down the side of the tall ba.s.swood tree, spilling little Montgomery, heels over head.

"Do be careful! Do be careful!" screamed Mrs. Robin. "You will all be killed! You will all be killed!"

But Montgomery was already flopping his wings at a great rate, and had started to fly when the heavy nest fell right on top of him, and there was little Montgomery under the nest, and the nest was wrong side up on the ground.

"Help! Help!" screamed little Montgomery. "Help! Help! I am under the nest!"

Robert Robin tugged at the nest, but the nest was too heavy for him to lift. Mrs. Robin came, and both of them tugged and pulled at the nest, but it was so heavy that both of them together could not lift it.

"Let us tear the nest apart!" said Mrs. Robin, but the dry mud was so hard that the twigs could not be pulled apart.

Just then Elizabeth went fluttering past, and little Sheldon fell off his limb, and Evelina began crying--she was so frightened,--so both parent birds were forced to leave poor little Montgomery under the heavy nest and look after their other children.

And what a time they had with them! For over an hour the three little robins went flying in all directions through the woods. Mister Tom Squirrel sat on a limb and laughed and chuckled, and said to Robert Robin: "The way your baby robins fly makes me remember the time I showed my cousins--the flying squirrels--the way to fly straight down!"

But Mister Robin was too excited to feel like visiting with Mister Tom Squirrel. He was afraid that he would lose one of his children. But at last the baby robins were tired enough to feel like resting. Little Sheldon was in the top of a cedar tree, Elizabeth was sitting in a green osier, and little Evelina was sitting on Mister Chipmunk's stump, but poor little Montgomery was still under the heavy nest, and neither Robert Robin nor Mrs. Robin could think of any way to get him out.

Over in the pasture a cow was wearing a cowbell. Every time the cow moved her head the bell said "Tonk! Tonkle! Tonk! Tonkle!" Robert Robin could hear the cowbell making the noise to let the farmer know where his brindle cow was. But Robert Robin kept hearing another sound. "Tonkle!

Tonkle!" Then he heard some one talking, and he saw two little girls coming into the woods. They were out strawberrying, and they were carrying tin pails on their arms, and whenever they dropped a strawberry in their tin pails it made a noise like "Tonkle! Tonkle!"

"Let us go through this corner of the woods, and maybe we will find some white strawberries!" said one little girl.

"Or some wintergreen berries!" said the other.

"Be careful and not tear your dress on the twigs!" said the first.

"This is an old dress, so I don't care!" said the other.

"There is a bird's nest!" said the first little girl.

"Turn it over and see what is inside of it!" said the other.

So the little girl poked Robert Robin's nest with the toe of her shoe and turned it over, and out jumped Montgomery Robin, and the first thing that he did was to open his mouth just as wide as he could. Both the little girls laughed.

"It is a young robin!" said Lucy, "let's feed it some of our strawberries!"

"You may feed it some of yours, if you want to, but I am going to take mine home to mother!" said Lettie, who was a fussy little girl, and her mother did not eat strawberries. They gave her neuritis and pimples.

"That poor little robin may have been under that nest, days, and days, and he is almost starved!" said Lucy. "So I am going to feed the poor thing some of my strawberries!"

So Lucy fed Montgomery three ripe strawberries. "Now that is all you may have now!" said Lucy to Montgomery. "People who have been having a famine should not overload their stomachs!"

"Don't touch the dirty thing or you will get bugs on you!" said Lettie.

"Oh! Bugs yourself!" said Lucy. "I hope you step on a snake! It would serve you right for being so nicey nicey!"

"You are a very rude little girl, to say such things!" said Lettie.

"I am very sorry if I hurt your feelings, Lettie!" said Lucy. "It was very rude of me to wish that you would step on a snake! I will take it all back, but I would laugh if you got a spider down your neck!"

Then Lucy and Lettie went out of the woods and left little Montgomery sitting on the ground, but in a very few minutes he started flying from stump to stump, and soon he was sitting in the cedar tree close by little Sheldon.

Towards night Robert Robin and Mrs. Robin coaxed the baby robins back into the big ba.s.swood tree, and all that night the four of them sat on the same limb and slept just as fine as could be.

At dawn, Robert Robin sang his "Hurry up!" song, then he came back to see how his family was getting along. The four baby robins looked very good in their new silky feathers, and they seemed almost as large as Mrs. Robin, and if their b.r.e.a.s.t.s had been red instead of speckled you could hardly have told them from full-grown robins. But they were still quite babies, and had to be fed, and it was several days before their parents taught them to find food for themselves.