Dooryard Stories Part 6

"Not one wing!" his father would answer.

"Why?" the son would ask. "I wouldn't tumble just because I put one wing out."

"It is not minding me," his father would say, "to see how far you can go without tumbling. I did not tell you only to keep from falling out. I told you to keep inside that twig."

Then the son would pout his bill and act very sulky, getting close to the twig which he had been told not to pa.s.s. When he thought his father was not looking, he would even wriggle a little beyond it. Mrs.

Swift was worried, but what could she do? She noticed that her husband did not talk so much as he used to about making a child mind the very first time he is spoken to.

One night when the Swifts had fed their children faithfully, this son was unusually naughty. It may be that he had eaten more than his share or that he had picked for the biggest insect every time that lunch was brought. It may be, too, that he was naughty simply because he wanted to be. It does not always mean that a child is ill when he is naughty.

His father had just told him to be more careful, and he made a face (yes, he did) and flopped aside to show what he could do without falling.

Then he felt a tiny twig on the edge of the nest break beneath him, and he went tumbling, b.u.mping, and sc.r.a.ping down into the fireplace below. He could not fly up, for his wings were not strong enough to carry him up such a narrow s.p.a.ce, and his parents could not get him.

He heard his brother and sisters crying and his mother saying that she had always expected that to happen.

"Horrid old twig!" he said. "Don't see why it had to break! Should think they might build their nest stronger. I don't care! I was sick of being told not to wriggle, anyway!"

Then he fluttered and sprawled through a crack beside the screen of the grate until he was out in the room. The Little Boy lay asleep in the bed, and that frightened the young Swift. When they tried to scare each other the children had always pretended that a Boy was after them. He crawled behind a picture which leaned against the wall, and stayed there and thought about his dear, dear home up in the chimney.

The Little Boy stirred and awakened and called out: "Mother! Mother!

There is somefing making a scratching noise in my room. I fink it is a Bear."

The young Swift sat very still while the Lady came in and hunted for the Bear. She never came near his hiding-place, and laughed at the Little Boy for thinking of Bears. She told him that the only Bears around their town were two-legged ones, and when he asked her what that meant she laughed again.

He peeped out from behind the picture and saw the Little Boy dress himself. He heard him say: "I can't poss'bly get vese shoes on, but I'll try and try and try." He thought how much pleasanter it was to be a Swift and have all his clothes grow on, and to go barefoot all the year.

He heard the Lady say: "Why, you precious Boy! You did get your shoes on, after all." Then he saw them go off to breakfast, racing to see who would beat.

After they were gone, he fluttered out to the window, and there the Lady found him, and the Little Boy danced around and wanted to touch him, but didn't quite dare. The Lady said: "I think this must have been your Bear," and the Little Boy said: "My teeny-weeny little bitty Bear wiv feavers on." He heard the Little Boy ask, too, why the bird had so many pins sticking out of his tail, and this made him cross. He did not understand what pins were, but he felt that anybody ought to know about tail-quills.

He didn't know much about Boys, for this was the first one he had ever seen, and he wondered what those s.h.i.+ny white things were in his mouth. He had never seen teeth and he could not understand. He wondered how the Boy got along without a bill, and pitied him very much. This Little Boy did not seem so very terrible. He even acted a bit afraid of the Swift.

Next the young Swift felt himself lifted gently in the Lady's hand and laid in a box with soft white stuff in it and two small holes cut in the cover. He was carried from room to room in the house and shown to other people. Once he heard a queer voice say, "Meouw!" and then the Little Boy stamped his foot and said: "Go way, Teddy Silvertip. You can't have my little bird, you hungry Cat."

After this the young Swift was more scared than before, and would have given every feather he had to be safely back in the nest in the chimney. He was hungry, too, and he wanted to see his father and his dear mother. He beat his wings against the sides of the box and cried for his mother. "Oh," he said, "if I were only back in the nest I wouldn't move. I wouldn't move a bit." Then the Cat mewed again and he kept still from fright.

At last he was taken into the open air and placed in the top of a short evergreen, where the Cat could not reach him. Here he clung, weak and lonely and scared, blinking his half-blinded eyes in a light brighter than he had yet seen. All the rest of that day he stayed there, while his father and mother and their other children were sleeping in the home nest. He expected never to see them again, but he did want to tell them how sorry he was.

After the sun had set and the moon was s.h.i.+ning, he saw his father darting to and fro above him. "Father!" he cried. "Father, I am so sorry that I moved past the twig. I was very naughty."

His father heard and flew down to tuck a fat and juicy May Beetle into his mouth. "You poor child!" said he. "Eat that and don't try to talk.

You will not do such things when you are older. I will get you some more food."

When he returned Mrs. Swift was with him, and they petted and fed the young Swift all night, never scolding him at all, because, as they said, he had been punished quite enough and was sorry. And that was true. His grandmother came also with a bit of food. She told him that they would feed him every night and that he should hide in the branches each day until his feathers were grown.

"In three days more," said she, "you will be ready to fly, and you look more like your father all the time. In three days more," she said, "if n.o.body eats you up."

You can imagine how anxious the young Swift was during those three days, and how small he tried to be when Silvertip was around.

"Surely," he thought, "the sun and moon were never before so slow in marking off the time."

When at last he was ready for flight, Silvertip was under the s...o...b..ll bush near by. The young Swift sprang into the air. "Good-by, my Cat friend," said he. "You look hungry, but you have lost your best chance at me. You should have been waiting at the grate for me. You might have known that such a foolish young Swift as I would tumble down sooner or later. All that saves some people is not having their foolishness found out!"

THE VERY RUDE YOUNG ROBINS

Why this pair of Robins chose to build so near the Sparrows, n.o.body knows. It was not at all like Robins to do so, for they are quite careful how they bring up their children. One would expect them to think how likely the little Robins would be to grow up rude and quarrelsome.

However, there their nest was, not the length of a beanpole from those of two pairs of Sparrows. When the nestlings were hatched, they listened all day to what the Sparrows were saying and looked at what they were doing. They heard and saw many things which Mr. and Mrs.

Robin did not like. But there was no helping it then, and all that their parents could do was to try to bring them up to be good little birds, and do as they had been told, and not as they had seen naughty children do.

It did make a difference in the behavior of the children, however, and after they left the nest this showed very plainly. When they were old enough to go outside the yard in which they had been hatched, they went to the place next door. There were many fowls on this place, and several Hens in coops with young Chickens around them. The father and mother left the young Robins in safe places while they went to hunt Worms in the newly hoed garden. Two children, a brother and a sister, were half hidden under the drooping branches of a large gooseberry bush.

They had been there for some time, when the sister said, "Just see what lots of good, clean food that Hen and her Chickens have. Don't you wish you had some of it?"

"Um-hum!" answered the brother. "What a pretty yellow it is. I just know it is good!"

Neither of them spoke again for a long time. Indeed, the brother had begun to settle his head down on his shoulders and slide the thin lids over his eyes, when his sister said, "If you were a Sparrow, you'd get some."

"Well, I'm not a Sparrow," he answered, "and so I shall have to go without."

He was almost cross to his dear little sister, but perhaps one could partly excuse him. He saw that there was much more than the Chickens could eat, and that it would lie there spread out on the board until they had spoiled it all by trampling it with muddy feet. Now it was lovely, clean, sweet corn-meal mush. Besides, he was becoming dreadfully hungry. It was fully ten minutes, you know, since he had been fed anything.

The little sister kept still for a while. Her mother had taught her that it does not always pay to talk too much. At last she asked, "Do you suppose those tiny bits of Chickens know the difference between a Sparrow and a Robin?"

Her brother opened his eyes very wide, and stretched his head up so that one could see the black and white feathers under his bill. He was almost full-grown. "I've a good mind to try to fool them," he said.

"You see, the Hen can't reach the board where the food is."

"I dare you to!" cried his sister, who really should have been his brother, she was so brave.

"All right," he answered. "Only you come too."

"I will," she said. "But let's wait until Father and Mother are looking the other way."

Twice they started out and came back because their parents were looking. At last they made a dash and were by the board.

"Stand aside!" said the brother, talking as nearly like a Sparrow as he could. "Let us have some of this!"

"Who are you?" asked the Chickens, while the old Hen cluck-cluck-clucked and strutted to and fro in the coop. Every little while she stuck her head out as far as she could reach, and her neck feathers spread around in a funny, fat way against the slats of her coop.

"Go away!" she scolded. "Go right away! That is not your mus.h.!.+ You are not my Chickens! Go right home to your mother! Cr-r-r-r-r!" She said this last, you know, because she was getting so angry that she could say nothing else.

The fowls behind the netting of the poultry-yard all came to see what was going on, and chattered about it in their cackling way. "Send them off!" they cried. "Send them off! The idea of their trying to take food from the Chickens!" The c.o.c.ks looked particularly big and fierce. Still, there is not much fun in looking big and fierce behind a wire netting, when the people whom you want to scare are in front of it.

The young Robins were dreadfully frightened, but having feathers all over their face, it did not really show. Neither one was willing to be the first to start away, and they didn't like to speak about it to each other for fear of being overheard. You know, if you can keep other people from finding out that you are scared, you may end by scaring them, and that was exactly what the Robins meant to do.

"Get out of our way!" said they. "Don't brush against us so again! If you were not young, we wouldn't have stood it this time. When you have feathers you may know better."