"Did you hear that?" he asked his wife.

She nodded her head silently.

"He's telling Farmer Green that it's time to get up!" Rusty exclaimed indignantly. "And since Farmer Green has seen fit to get somebody else to wake him, I certainly shall not trouble myself on his account any more."

So Rusty Wren flew away to the orchard to sing his dawn song. Jolly Robin, who lived there, in an old apple tree, was surprised to hear Rusty Wren singing in that neighborhood so early. And he was still more astonished at Rusty's melody.

His voice was so much shriller than usual that Jolly Robin knew instantly that something had displeased him.

"What's happened to upset you?" Jolly Robin inquired, after Rusty had finished singing.

"I expect to come here and give my dawn song every morning," Rusty remarked. "And if there's anybody living in the orchard that objects, he had better move away at once."

Of course Jolly Robin didn't want to do that. And he said as much, too.

"But I hope you'll sing a little more happily," he told Rusty, "because I don't like to hear people complaining--and neither does my wife."

It is easy to understand why Farmer Green and his family overslept, when one knows that Rusty Wren no longer sang his dawn song beneath Farmer Green's window. And when Rusty saw that the whole household never stirred until long after sunrise, he was so pleased that he couldn't help making a few remarks about the new bird in the farmhouse, which had annoyed him so by singing "Cuckoo! cuckoo!"

"This stranger is a very poor songster!" Rusty said to his wife.

"All he can sing is 'Cuckoo! cuckoo!' in that silly way of his. He has no trills and runs and ripples at all! And he can't even repeat his song ten times a minute, as I give mine. He has to wait at least half an hour before he cries 'Cuckoo! cuckoo!' again. And no one but a simpleton would ever attempt to awaken a hard-working farmer by such half-hearted singing."

Mrs. Rusty quite agreed with her husband.

"Farmer Green will be sorry he brought home such a worthless bird,"

she said.

VI

MR. CROW TO THE RESCUE

As time went on, and the Green family overslept each morning, Rusty began to grow very weary of the monotonous "Cuckoo! cuckoo!" which came every half hour, all day long, through the kitchen window of the farmhouse.

"I'd like to know what sort of bird that is!" he exclaimed at last.

"If he'd only come out here in the yard I'd ask him his name--and tell him what I think of him, too."

But the stranger never stirred out of the kitchen. And at length Rusty decided to make inquiries about him. Seeing Jimmy Rabbit pa.s.sing through the orchard on his way home from the cabbage-patch, Rusty called to him.

"If you happen to see old Mr. Crow, I wish you would ask him if he won't please come right over to the orchard," Rusty Wren said.

"There's something I want to find out. And Mr. Crow knows so much that perhaps he can help me."

Jimmy Rabbit declared that he would be delighted to deliver the message. And he must have gone out of his way to find Mr. Crow, for the old gentleman arrived at the orchard in less than sixteen minutes.

Rusty was waiting for him. And, having explained about the strange bird as well as he could, he asked Mr. Crow what he thought.

"I'd like to hear his song," said old Mr. Crow.

"Come right over to my tree near the house!" Rusty urged him.

Mr. Crow hesitated.

"Where's Farmer Green?" he inquired.

"Oh! He's working in the hayfield."

"Where's Johnnie Green?" Mr. Crow asked.

"Oh! He's in the hayfield, too, riding on the hayrake," Rusty Wren explained.

"I'll come with you, then," Mr. Crow croaked.

So they flew to the dooryard. And they hadn't waited there long when the strange bird sang his "Cuckoo! cuckoo!"

"There!" said Rusty. "That's his silly song!"

And to his surprise Mr. Crow haw-hawed right out.

"What's the joke?" Rusty Wren wanted to know.

"That's not a bird----" said old Mr. Crow--"or, at least, it's not a _real_ bird. He's made of wood. And he lives inside a cuckoo clock."

"Ah!" Rusty cried. "An alarm clock!"

But old Mr. Crow shook his head.

"No!" he replied. "It's just an everyday clock. And, instead of striking, it lets this little wooden bird come out and sing."

Rusty Wren said that he wouldn't care for a clock like that and that he didn't see why Farmer Green had brought it home, anyhow.

"Cuckoo clocks amuse the women and children," Mr. Crow remarked wisely.

"Then you think Farmer Green was not dissatisfied with my singing?

You think he would like me to wake him every morning, just as I used to?" Rusty waited eagerly for Mr. Crow's opinion.

Old Mr. Crow pondered for a while before answering. He reflected that since it was long past corn-planting time, it really made no difference to him whether Farmer Green overslept or not. If the corn had just been put in the ground, he would have liked to have Farmer Green stay in bed all day long.

"I understand that the whole family enjoys your songs," Mr. Crow told Rusty at last. "And for the present you may as well sing your dawn song right here in your own tree, beneath Farmer Green's window. But if you're living here next spring, I wish you would consult me again."

Rusty Wren agreed to that, thanking Mr. Crow for his kindness, too.

And, afterward, instead of being angry, he laughed whenever he heard that silly "Cuckoo! cuckoo!" Since he knew it was only a wooden bird, Rusty Wren was jealous no longer.

The next morning he awakened Farmer Green at the break o' day. And the hired man was so sleepy that he fell downstairs and couldn't work for a whole week.