The Tale of Bobby Bobolink.

by Arthur Scott Bailey.

I

SOMEBODY IS EXPECTED

ON May Day the feathered folk in Pleasant Valley began to stop, look and listen. They were expecting somebody.

"Have you seen him?" Rusty Wren asked Jolly Robin.

Jolly Robin said that he hadn't; but he added that he was on the lookout.

"Have you heard his song?" little Mr. Chippy inquired eagerly of Mr.

Blackbird.

"No!" that dusky rascal replied. "Not yet! Maybe he isn't coming here this summer." Mr. Blackbird liked to tease little Mr. Chippy. And generally when he tried to, he succeeded.

"Oh! Don't say that!" Mr. Chippy exclaimed. "If I couldn't hear his gay voice I shouldn't care to spend a summer here myself."

Over the meadow, beyond the stone wall where Mr. Chippy made his home in a wild grapevine, Mr. Meadowlark flew to the swampy place where the rushes grew, just to find a Red-winged Blackbird that he knew, in order to learn whether he had seen or heard the friend everybody was watching for.

Perched upon a swaying last year's cattail, Mr. Red-winged Blackbird shook his head in reply. And he said that no doubt it would be a week before the looked-for arrival. "The season's a bit backward," Mr.

Red-winged Blackbird remarked. "So I don't expect to set eyes on him to-day--though I have known him to get here as early as May Day."

Mr. Meadowlark confessed that he was disappointed.

"It would be a much gayer May Day," he said, "if his rollicking song rang over the meadow."

"What's the matter with your own singing?" Mr. Red-winged Blackbird asked him--meaning that in his opinion Mr. Meadowlark had no reason to be ashamed of his own voice.

"My song is not like his," Mr. Meadowlark answered. And he sighed as he spoke. "To be sure, some people are kind enough to say that my singing is unusually sweet. But you know yourself that there isn't a songster anywhere that can carol so joyfully as Bobby Bobolink."

Mr. Red-winged Blackbird did not dispute that statement. How could he, when the birds were all waiting so eagerly to hear Bobby Bobolink's voice?

"He has a way"--Mr. Meadowlark went on--"a way of making almost any summer's day a gay holiday. He is just bubbling over with happiness; and he can't seem to get his notes out fast enough."

"Yes!" Mr. Red-winged Blackbird chimed in. "He's a cheerful, happy-go-lucky chap. And he wears gay clothes, too."

"What's the matter with your own clothes?" Mr. Meadowlark inquired--meaning that in his opinion Mr. Red-winged Blackbird's black suit, with the shoulders scarlet and buff, was about as striking as anybody could want.

Mr. Red-winged Blackbird was pleased. Anybody could see that. He bowed and spread his wings and tail, and uttered his well-known call, "Conk-err-ee!" before he made any reply.

"People often compliment me on my taste in colors," he said at last.

"And for year-round wear I do think _my_ suit is about as good as anybody could ask for. But you know yourself that during the first half of the summer Bobby Bobolink makes a cheerful sight, when his black and white and buff back flashes above the meadow."

And Mr. Meadowlark couldn't deny it; for he knew that it was true.

II

THE LATEST ARRIVAL

BOBBY BOBOLINK did not reach Pleasant Valley in time to spend May Day with his old friends of the summer before. And although everybody was disappointed not to see him--and hear him--the feathered folk tried to be cheerful and told one another that Bobby ought to arrive almost any day.

"He always finds it hard to leave the rice fields in the South," Mr.

Red-winged Blackbird observed with a knowing wink at old Mr. Crow, as the two stopped for a chat on the morning after May Day. "It's rice-planting time in the South," Mr. Red-winged Blackbird explained.

"Somewhat like corn-planting time here!" And he winked once more.

Although Mr. Crow was in the habit of scratching up Farmer Green's newly-planted corn, just as Bobby Bobolink uncovered the freshly-sown rice in the South, Mr. Crow never cared to have any of his neighbors even hint that he did such a thing. And now he glared at Mr. Red-winged Blackbird, who continued to wink at him.

"Is there something in your eye?" Mr. Crow inquired in his coldest manner.

Mr. Red-winged Blackbird had no wish to make Mr. Crow angry. So he stopped winking at once.

"When you see your friend Bobby Bobolink you'd better tell him to leave the corn strictly alone," Mr. Crow remarked. "Farmer Green expects to begin planting in about three weeks. And he counts on me to watch the field for him. If I catch Bobby Bobolink there he'll wish he had stayed in the rice fields, down South."

Mr. Red-winged Blackbird smiled. And he told old Mr. Crow not to worry.

"Bobby Bobolink won't touch the corn," he said. "During the first half of the summer he lives on such things as caterpillars and gra.s.shoppers, with a bit of gra.s.s-seed now and then."

Old Mr. Crow replied that he was glad to know that.

"He's wise to leave the corn alone," he added. "If Farmer Green was on the lookout for him--with a gun handy--Bobby Bobolink wouldn't act so care-free as he generally does. He wouldn't sing such rollicking songs in the meadow. And now that you've mentioned how he spends his springs in the South, I don't wonder that he appears glad to get to Pleasant Valley. For you may well believe that folks are not so fond of him down there where the rice grows. And unless I'm much mistaken the planters actually order him out of their fields."

Mr. Red-winged Blackbird told Mr. Crow that he hadn't a doubt that everything Mr. Crow said was so. And he was just about to remark that he should think Mr. Crow must lead a care-free, happy-go-lucky life in winter, in the South, because Farmer Green always stayed in Pleasant Valley the whole year round. But as he opened his bill to speak he heard a sound over in the meadow that made him forget what was on the tip of his tongue.

"Did you hear that song?" he cried. "Hurrah!"

Old Mr. Crow c.o.c.ked his head on one side and listened. "Yes!" he agreed. "There's no doubt about it. Bobby Bobolink is here at last!"

III

GREETINGS

AS fast as they could fly, old Mr. Crow and Mr. Red-winged Blackbird hurried over to the meadow, where they had heard Bobby Bobolink's bubbling notes.

They found him enjoying himself with a lively company of careless bachelors--all distant cousins of Bobby Bobolink--who had travelled with him in a roistering flock all the way from the South.

They were all wonderful singers--those happy Bobolinks. They could scarcely have kept still if they had wanted to. But somehow Bobby Bobolink seemed to be just a bit the best singer of the lot.