Read Ebook: Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin by Oldfield Reuben Bertram

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Ebook has 506 lines and 21361 words, and 11 pages

"They are so hideous!" said Mrs. Partridge.

"I must hurry back to my eggs!" said Mrs. Robin. "My babies will begin to hatch next week!"

"I expect that my baby partridges will all be out of the shell before next Thursday!" said Mrs. Partridge. "I do hope that the weather stays good! Last year the weather was so cold and wet that it was very disagreeable!"

"How many eggs are you covering, Mrs. Partridge?" asked Mrs. Robin.

"Only twelve, this year!"

"Twelve! Mercy me! Why! Mrs. Partridge! I cannot see how you will be able to look after so many children!"

"I do not think twelve is such a large family! Last year I had fourteen, and every one of them grew to be as big as their father," said Mrs. Partridge.

"I always take my children out of the nest as soon as they are out of the shell! It is so much more sanitary!" said Mrs. Partridge.

"My children simply have to stay in their nest until they are ready to fly! It is such a job to feed and care for them! They never seem to get enough to eat!"

Just then they heard Mister Robert Robin calling. He was standing beside the nest and saying, "Tut! Tut! Tut!--Tut! Tut! Tut!"

"Mister Robin is getting uneasy so I had better hurry home before he does something desperate!"

Mrs. Partridge watched Mrs. Robin as she flew back to her nest in the tall basswood tree.

"That little Mrs. Robin is a very neat sort of a little body!" she said to herself. "I just know that she is a tidy nest keeper,--she always looks so spick and span, herself!"

Robert Robin could hardly wait until Mrs. Robin got back to their tree. He was in such a hurry. The moment she settled herself on the nest he darted away across the fields, straight to where the row of cherry trees bordered the farmer's garden.

He wanted to see if the cherries were ripe. But he was surprised to find that the cherries were all green and hard, and were too sour to even taste like a cherry.

"What makes the cherries so late, this year?" he thought to himself. "It does seem to me that these trees were in bloom so many weeks ago, that it is high time for them to be ready with their cherries!"

Robert Robin was sitting in the top of one of the farmer's cherry trees, thinking about the cherries that ought to be ripe when he saw a cat in the farmer's garden.

It was a big Maltese cat. It was a pretty cat, but Mister Robert Robin could not see anything pretty about a cat, and he did not like the looks of this one.

"I never saw this cat before!" thought Robert Robin. "The farmer must have a new cat! I hope it is a house-cat instead of a cat that goes prowling around the fields and woods!"

The big Maltese cat went over to the strawberry bed and lay down on some straw. Then the farmer's wife came into the garden, and there was a little boy with her. He was her sister's boy, and he was going to spend the summer at the farmer's home. The boy had a tin whistle, and once in a while he would blow upon it. The farmer's wife was thinking to herself, "After he goes to bed to-night, I am going to hide that whistle where he can't find it!" But she did not say a word to the little boy about the whistle.

The little boy saw the big Maltese cat lying on the strawberry bed, and the little boy went up close to the cat and blew his tin whistle at the cat. The big Maltese cat did not like to hear the whistle so close to his ears; it made his ears hurt, so he said "Meow!" and started to walk away, and the naughty little boy laughed, and blew the whistle with all his might. Then the farmer's wife said: "Do not tease the kitty, Donald!"

But Donald had not been taught to do as he was told, so he blew the whistle again and again and chased the Maltese cat across the lettuce bed, and over two rows of radishes.

The farmer's wife shouted, "Donald! Donald!" but Donald kept blowing the tin whistle and following the Maltese cat, but the next thing he knew the farmer's wife took his tin whistle away from him.

Donald was so angry that he jumped right up and down on the celery plants, and the farmer's wife said, "Look here! Young man!" and shook Donald until he looked like a jumping jack, and Donald was so surprised to think that anyone would dare shake him that he stopped right where he was, and then the farmer's wife said to him:

"Now, young man! You may as well know at the very start that if you want to be a bad little boy you will have a tough row to hoe, but if you want to mend your ways and be a nice little boy, things will be different! I thought I might as well make that plain to you now as later!"

Then Donald wiped his eyes on the farmer's wife's apron, and helped her weed two whole rows of carrots, and the big Maltese cat went to sleep under the gooseberry bush, and Robert Robin flew back to the woods and told Mrs. Robin that the farmer had a new cat and that the farmer's wife had a new baby that didn't like cats.

ROBERT ROBIN AND WIDOW BLUNT'S STUFFED OWL

It was a dismal, rainy day. Long before morning, the storm had begun, and when the faint light had at last dawned in the east, the rain still pattered down on the leaves of Mister Robert Robin's big basswood tree, and fell in great drops from their tips. Robert Robin did not like the weather. He had not even sung his "Hurry up!" song, and the rain had pelted down so furiously that his every feather was wet, and he was soaked to his shivering skin.

Mrs. Robin was afraid that the raindrops would fall inside the nest and wet the eggs, so she kept her wings spread out so far that her shoulders ached.

"It is very uncomfortable, sitting in this cramped position!" she said to Robert Robin. "I am afraid that I will get the rheumatism in my joints!"

"Let me cover the eggs for you!" said Robert Robin.

"With your feathers all wet?" exclaimed Mrs. Robin. "I am trying to keep the eggs dry and warm!"

"Let me try it once!" said Robert Robin.

"No! Thank you, dear! your intentions are good, but you are so clumsy you would be almost sure to break one of the eggs, and to-day is the day they will hatch!"

"I wish that it would stop raining!" said Robert Robin.

"Why not sing your 'Dry Weather' song?" asked Mrs. Robin. "The rain might stop coming if it heard you singing your 'Dry Weather' song!"

"I only sing my 'Dry Weather' song when the weather is dry!" answered Robert Robin. "Still I would do almost anything to make this rain stop coming down!"

So Robert Robin flew up to the top of his big basswood tree to sing his "Dry Weather" song, in the rain.

Mister Jim Crow was sitting in his tall hemlock tree. He was wishing that the rain would stop falling, for he was as wet as water could make him. From over the tops of the tall forest trees came the sound of Robert Robin singing his "Dry Weather" song:

"Dry up the crick! Dry up the crick! Dry up the beetles! Dry up the beetles! Dry up the crick!"

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Jim Crow. "That funny Robert Robin is singing his 'Dry Weather' song! He is saying 'dry up the crick!'--he means 'creek' of course, but could anything be funnier than that wet bird sitting in the rain, and singing about dry weather? The creek is roaring down through the sheep pasture, like a yellow river! 'Dry up the crick!' Ha! Ha! Ha!" and Jim Crow laughed so hard that he forgot all about being wet.

"Dry up the crick!" screamed Robert Robin over and over again, until he was too tired to sing any more. Then he perched near Mrs. Robin and said, "I sang it seven times, but the rain is coming down harder than ever!"

"Well! You did your best, dear!" said Mrs. Robin. "It isn't your fault if it rains," and she could smell his feathers, they were so wet.

Suddenly the sky grew lighter, and with a roar that shook the earth a mighty wind swept through the woods; the clouds began to break away; the blue sky shone in patches between the torn clouds, and the rain was over.

No more rain fell, but all that night the fierce wind raved and roared, and when the sun came up in the east once more, the fierce gusts were whipping the branches of the elms, and twisting the tops of the tall pines, but Robert Robin's big basswood tree stood on the northeast side of the forest, so that the wind scarcely touched it.

During the night four little baby robins had pecked their way out of the blue eggs, and when daylight came, Mrs. Robin had cleared the nest of broken shells and was covering her babies with her warm feathers. Robert Robin was sitting on the big branch close by. He was oiling and arranging his feathers with great care.

"I must admit that strange things happen!" said Robert Robin, as he lifted a feather and oiled it on the under side.

"I have a little surprise for you!" said Mrs. Robin.

Robert Robin looked, and as Mrs. Robin stood up, he saw four little baby robins. The four little baby robins looked at him and opened their mouths just as wide as they could.

"Why didn't you tell me they were here?" he said. "The poor little dears are almost starved!" and away he flew in a great rush to get them some breakfast. In a few moments he was back again and fed one of them. Then away he hurried again and in a moment he came carrying more food for the babies, but the babies looked so nearly alike that Robert Robin fed the same one twice, and that made Mrs. Robin laugh.

"Men are such blunderbusses!" she said.

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