A tired-looking robin hopped to the end of a twig and answered: "Well!

Well! If there isn't my old friend, Jim Crow! It does seem so good to get back home again and see the neighbors!"

"Why! It is Robert Robin!" exclaimed Jim Crow. "I thought that you were away on your vacation!"

"We have been, and we have returned!" said Robert Robin.

"You made a short stay of it!" said Jim Crow. "You left us yesterday morning!"

"Can that be possible?" said Robert Robin. "It seems to me that we were away a week! But the very best part of a vacation is the getting back!"

said Robert Robin, and Jim Crow said:

"It was very quiet around the woods while you were away. There was no one to sing us a Hurry-up song in the morning, and no one to sing us a Cheer-up song in the afternoon, and no one to sing us a Good-night song when the red sun was sinking behind the purple hill. Mrs. Crow has had the blues all day, Billy Rabbit has been very lonely, and even Melancthon c.o.o.n was asking what had become of you; he had missed your singing. I came over here just on purpose to listen to little Mister Bob-o-link sing his Spingle, Spangle song. So you see, Mister Robin, we all need you to cheer us up with your songs and keep us good-natured!"

"Thank you very much, Mister Crow!" said Robert Robin, "I will surely remember to sing you my Good-night song, when the sun goes down behind the hill!"

And that evening, when the red sun was sinking behind the purple hill, and the sky of the west was hung with the tapestry of clouds, and the shadows in the valley were soft as black velvet, and the breath of the wind was like a whisper among the leaves, Robert Robin sang his Good-night song:

"Mellow light!

Mellow light!

Yellow light!

Yellow light!

Has gone!

Has gone!

Let us rest,-- Let us rest!

'Til dawn,--'til dawn!"

Then Mister Robert Robin fluttered down into his own big ba.s.swood tree, and he and all of his family slept soundly all night, and not even Mister Screech-owl and his whistle disturbed them.

CHAPTER VIII

ROBERT ROBIN TELLS THE STORY OF WINTER

It was well towards Fall when Mister and Mrs. Robert Robin's second family were out of the nest, and flying around. The days were getting shorter and the nights seemed very, very long to Robert Robin, who kept the sharpest watch to see the first faint light of dawn in the east. For Robert Robin felt it his duty to waken everybody just as quickly as he was sure that morning was about to break. But as the sun came up in the east a little later each morning, Robert Robin had longer and longer to wait.

"It seems to me that last night was the longest night that we have had this summer!" he said to Mrs. Robin.

"Perhaps to-night will not be as long!" said Mrs. Robin.

"Perhaps not!" said Robert Robin, "but if to-night is any longer than last night, I am going to get the children together and tell them about the Great White Bear and the Little Gray Mouse!"

That afternoon the clouds covered the sky, and towards night a fine misty rain fell, so that the afternoon was dark, and it seemed to Robert Robin that night arrived long before time for it.

"It is getting dark here in the middle of the afternoon!" he said.

The next morning a fog covered all the land, and Robert Robin had good reason to think that the night was far too long.

"Some one is taking our days away from us! By this time to-morrow we will not have any light left, if it keeps on this way!"

But in the afternoon the fog banks drifted away, and the bright sun shone, so Robert Robin felt much better, and he even sang a few songs to cheer up Jim Crow and the other neighbors.

"This is a very fine day!" said Mrs. Robin. And so it was.

The sky was clear and of the deepest blue, the wind was still, and the woods were quiet. Over in the farmer's barnyard a hen was cackling, but in the woods not a sound could be heard. Mister Chipmunk was sitting on his old home stump, but he had nothing to say, and Mister Tom Squirrel had been working so hard lately, that he was too tired to talk.

"To-day would be a good day to tell the children the story of the Great White Bear, and the Little Gray Mouse!" said Mrs. Robin to Robert Robin.

"Well! Get them together, and I will tell them the story!" said Robert Robin. "I may as well do it one time as another, and it doesn't take any longer to do a thing when you think of it than it does to put it off and then have to think of it again!"

So Mrs. Robin called to the children to come and hear Robert Robin tell the story of the Great White Bear and the Little Gray Mouse.

When the children had all gathered in the big ba.s.swood tree Robert Robin said, "Come with me!" and led the way to the other side of the woods, near the big stone under which Gerald Fox had his new home, and not far from the old stump fence. Here were many sumach bushes with their fernlike leaves and bright red bobs.

Robert Robin perched on a sumach limb, and straightened his feathers, then he sat up very much as if he were about to sing, and said:

"I have brought you to this side of the woods to tell you the story of the Great White Bear, and the Little Gray Mouse, because it was in this very spot that my father told me the same story, and it was in this same place that his father told the story to him, and no one knows how many, many years the family has gathered here by the big stone, to listen to this same story of the Great White Bear and the Little Gray Mouse.

Sheldon! Will you please turn around and look this way?"

"All of you children should pay the closest attention to this story. You should not miss a single word of it, for it will be your duty to tell it to your children, just as I am telling it to you, for this is the story of Winter, and the story of why all robins fly southward every Fall, and why they return to the north in the Spring!"

Then Robert Robin told them the story of the Great White Bear, and the Little Gray Mouse.

_Robert Robin's Story_

It was many, many seasons ago, before there was any north or south, and when there was only an east and a west, that there lived in the deep, dark woods of the north a King Robin. This King Robin and his mate and their four baby robins were all the robins that there were to be found in all the deep, dark woods.

Every morning when the gray light in the east glowed through the woods, King Robin sang a song, and every evening when the sun was about to sink behind the hills of the west, King Robin sang another song.

King Robin's breast was covered with the softest and whitest down, but one day Mrs. Robin noticed that the tiny tips of the feathers were stained with red.

"You have some cherry juice on your white breast!" said Mrs. King Robin.

"I will wash it off!" said King Robin.

So King Robin plunged into Lake Win-a-ke-tea-cup and washed his white breast, but the stain would not come off, and each day the tiny tips of the soft white feathers of King Robin's breast became a darker red until at last as King Robin sat in the top of his tall tree and sang his evening song, his breast was the color of the red sunset, and each morning as he sang his morning song, the red sunrise was no redder than King Robin's breast. And King Robin grew very proud of his red breast which was stained by the dyes of the glowing sky.

Near the foot of King Robin's tree a Little Gray Mouse had his nest, and as the weather was neither too warm nor too cold, the Little Gray Mouse often sat outside his door and visited with King Robin.

One day they were talking about the Great White Bear. The Great White Bear lived in a cave. The cave was very large, and in one corner of it the Great White Bear had his nest. The Little Gray Mouse said to King Robin: "I am not afraid of the Great White Bear.

Are you?"

And King Robin answered, "Yes, I am very much afraid of the Great White Bear."

"I dare go into his cave, and tangle his fur!" said the Little Gray Mouse.

"I would not do that, if I were you!" said King Robin. "If the Great White Bear grew angry, he might do something terrible to you!"