The Tale of Bobby Bobolink Part 8

It was no wonder that Bobby Bobolink thought as he did, because his neighbors were always begging him to sing something for them.

"It must be that Mr. Turtle wanted to see me so he could ask me to sing some songs for him," Bobby thought. And wis.h.i.+ng to please Timothy Turtle, Bobby Bobolink sang as he hadn't sung all summer long.

At last Timothy Turtle felt that he couldn't bear to hear another note.

And flopping off the stump, he splashed into the water and sank to the bottom of the swamp, where he buried his head in the mud.

And there he stayed until he dared hope that Bobby Bobolink had stopped singing, or gone away to a distant part of the country.

"Has anybody seen Timothy Turtle?" Bobby Bobolink kept calling as soon as he noticed that Mr. Turtle had vanished. But no one knew where the old fellow was. And at last Bobby gave up looking for him. But he thought it strange that Timothy hadn't waited to hear the rest of his song.

"I hope he isn't ill," Bobby told his friends.

But they only laughed.

"Timothy Turtle is altogether too old and tough to have much the matter with him," they said. "If he's ill, it's nothing but ill temper."

XX

A HERMIT'S ADVICE

THERE was another, besides Timothy Turtle, who was not pleased when Bobby Bobolink moved to Cedar Swamp at haying time. But this was a very different sort of person. It was Jolly Robin's cousin, Mr. Hermit Thrush. Everybody called him "the Hermit" for short, because he was a quiet gentleman, who did not like to attract attention, but preferred to spend his time in a thicket on the edge of the swamp. He had a beautiful, sweet song, which he sang in a calm, unruffled fas.h.i.+on when he thought n.o.body was near.

The Hermit loathed noisy, boisterous people. And he disliked loud clothes, too--no matter who wore them. He had even been known to speak in a slighting way of his cousin, Jolly Robin, not only because he was so sprightly and cheerful, but because he always wore a red waistcoat.

The Hermit himself clung to more sober colors. His coat was olive-brown, his tail somewhat paler in hue, and his waistcoat of quite a light shade, spotted with black.

As a rule he had little to say to his neighbors. But soon after Bobby Bobolink came to the swamp to live the Hermit began to talk more freely.

He began to make complaints, saying that he had chosen Cedar Swamp as a quiet place to live and it was upsetting to him to have any one as harum-scarum as Bobby Bobolink settle in the neighborhood.

And one day the Hermit even spoke to Bobby Bobolink himself and took him to task, although n.o.body had introduced Bobby to him. And generally the Hermit wouldn't speak to anybody who hadn't made his acquaintance like that.

"Young man!" said the Hermit solemnly, when he chanced to meet the newcomer near the thicket where the Hermit lived, "I'm going to give you a bit of advice. I'm going to warn you that if you don't behave differently you'll come to some bad end."

Now, Bobby Bobolink supposed that of course the speaker was only joking.

He knew that some people could joke when they wore a long face. So he laughed heartily. And thinking what a jolly chap the stranger in the spotted waistcoat was, he began to sing.

"There you go!" the Hermit exclaimed as a look of pain crossed his refined face. "You can't even keep still long enough to hear a little valuable advice. Do stop that annoying noise of yours and listen to what I have to say!"

Bobby Bobolink was so surprised to hear anybody speak in such a way of his singing that he broke right off in the middle of a note, making a squeaky sound that caused the Hermit to shudder.

"Now try to control yourself," said the Hermit. "And if you can only learn to stop making that jingling, jangling music perhaps you'll be able to save yourself from a sad fate."

Bobby Bobolink stared at the Hermit as if he couldn't believe what his own ears told him.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded.

With great care the Hermit flicked a bit of moss off his waistcoat before answering. And then he said, "Don't you know that some day when you're in the midst of a frenzy of song you're going to explode? And then there'll be nothing left of you except a cloud of feathers!"

XXI

HOW TO TAKE BAD NEWS

FOR once Bobby Bobolink's heart seemed to come right up into his mouth.

Usually he never let anything dash his high spirits. If matters didn't go exactly as they should with him he would laugh and say that probably they would be different to-morrow. And more likely than not he would burst into the jolliest song he knew. Singing like that always helped him amazingly, when a good many people would have moped and looked glum.

But now the gloomy warning of Jolly Robin's mournful cousin, the Hermit Thrush, threw a sudden dread into him.

"Why"--he asked the Hermit in a quavering voice--"why do you think I'm likely to explode some day when I'm singing?"

"I don't _think_ that. I _know_ it," the Hermit corrected him. "No bird can crowd one note upon another the way you do without running a terrible risk. If you don't do differently, some fine day your wife is going to miss you. And when the neighbors search for you, and find nothing but a few feathers scattered on the ground, they'll know what has happened to you."

Bobby Bobolink actually began to tremble as the Hermit described the terrible end that awaited him. He was so alarmed that all he could say was, "My goodness!"

"I thought I ought to tell you," the Hermit went on. "I thought maybe you didn't understand. And now that you've a wife and children, too, of course you ought to take care of yourself. You won't want any such accident to happen to you."

"No, indeed!" Bobby Bobolink a.s.sured him. "And you must tell me how I can sing fast--as I always do--and yet do it safely."

"Ah!" the Hermit exclaimed. "That can't be done. You must sing more slowly, as I do. Take plenty of time for every note. And above all, don't sing very often!"

"Oh! I never could sing that way!" Bobby Bobolink cried. "I have to sing joyful songs. And you know you always sing that kind in quick time."

"Pardon me!" said the Hermit, who was a most polite person. "I never sing joyful songs. So you see you are mistaken."

"Well, if you sang the sort I do you'd know that they have to be given in a lively fas.h.i.+on," Bobby told him. "I don't see how it would be possible to make a song sound merry if it had to be sung slowly."

The Hermit pondered over that speech.

"There's only one thing for you to do," he said at last. "You must select only mournful songs.... You know you sing them in slow time."

"Pardon me!" Bobby Bobolink said, for he was determined to be just as polite as the Hermit. "I never sing mournful songs. So you see you are mistaken."

Now, for some reason the Hermit thought that a rude remark, though it was quite like one that he had made himself but a few moments before. He drew himself up stiffly and said that he didn't care to talk with Bobby Bobolink any further. "You know," he added, "we haven't been introduced."

Somehow that amused Bobby. Before he knew what he was doing he had laughed aloud. And the moment he laughed he felt so happy once more that he couldn't help singing. So he started right in the middle of a song, where it was the liveliest. And finding, when he had finished, that he hadn't exploded, but felt better for the effort, he never paid any more heed to the Hermit's solemn warning.

As for the Hermit, he went straight off to the other side of Cedar Swamp to live. He claimed that he simply had to have quiet. And there was no such thing, with Bobby Bobolink around.

XXII