Part 4

These quills are very useful, too, for after a Swift has broken off a tiny twig for his nest, he has to cling to the side of the chimney and fix it into place, and he could not do this without supporting himself by these tail quills. It is hard work building nests, and you can see that it would be. They have to cling with both feet, support themselves with their tails, put each tiny twig in place with their bills, and glue it there with sticky saliva from their mouths or else with tree-gum.

The young husband who was building his first home low down in the chimney was a sturdy and rather wilful fellow, who was very sure what he wanted, and just as sure that he was going to get it. When he said, “I shall do this,” or, “I am going to have that,” other people had learned to keep still. They sometimes had a smiling look around the bill, but they said nothing. His wife was a sweet and sensible Swift who never made a fuss about anything, or bragged of what she meant to do. Still, other Swifts who watched them said that she had her way quite as often as he had his.

It was really she who had chosen to build well down in the chimney. Her husband had preferred to be near the top, and she had agreed to that, but spoke of what would happen if one of their children should fall out of the nest.

“There is no need of one falling out,” said Mr. Swift. “Tell them to lie still and not push around. Then they will not fall out.”

Mrs. Swift fixed one of the feathers on the under side of her left wing, and then remarked: “And you do not think it would disturb you to have our neighbors passing all the time.”

“Yes, I do,” he replied. “I have thought so from the first, and I am thinking that it might be well to build lower for that reason. Then we could be passing the others instead.”

He flew down and pecked at the bricks in a few places to make sure that he could fasten a nest securely. Then he came back to his wife. “I have decided to build the lowest nest of all,” said he, “but you understand it is not on account of the children. There is no sense in their moving around in the nest.”

“I understand,” said Mrs. Swift, and he flew away for twigs while she stayed behind to visit with her mother-in-law.

The mother-in-law’s eyes twinkled. “I believe my son said that his children were not to move around in the nest,” she said with a laugh. “I wonder how he is going to stop their doing so.”

“Tell them, I suppose,” answered young Mrs. Swift, smilingly. “Did he push around at all when he was a baby?”

“He?” replied the older Swift. “He was the most restless child I ever hatched. He will know more about bringing up children after he has raised a brood or two. Don’t worry, my dear. It will come out all right.” She flew off and the young wife went for twigs also, and thought how happy she ought to be in having such a mother-in-law.

When the lowest nest was built and the four long pure white eggs were laid in it, Mr. and Mrs. Swift were a very proud young couple. The nest was so thin that one could see the eggs through it quite plainly, but it was exceedingly stout and firm. It was not a soft nest, and it had no real lining, although Mrs. Swift had laid in one especially perfect grass blade “to give it style.”

That grass blade may be seen to this day by any one who cares to look at the nest as it lies in a cabinet in the house. It was the only nest in the chimney which had anything but twigs in it, and some people wondered at Mrs. Swift’s taste. One stout elderly mother Swift said “she supposed it was all right, but that she had never done such a thing and her children had turned out all right.” However, young Mrs. Swift smiled in her pretty way and did not talk back.

When they were planning for the four children whom they expected, Mrs. Swift spoke of how patient they would have to be with them, but Mr. Swift said: “They must be brought up to mind! If I tell a child once to do a thing, that is enough. You will see how I bring them up.” Then he ruffled up his feathers, puffed out his throat, and looked very important.

They did most of their visiting in the beautiful night-time, for it is a custom among their people to fly and hunt and visit in the dark, and rest by day. Their busiest time is always just before the sun comes up, and so it happened that the Little Boy who slept in the room below did not often hear the rumbling noise in the chimney as they flew in and out. When they were awakened he slept quietly in his snug little bed, and as he was awakening, and stretching, and getting his dimples ready for the day, the Swifts were going to sleep after a busy night.

When the baby Swifts broke their shells and were seen for the first time by their loving father and mother, Mr. Swift was surprised to find how small they were. Mrs. Swift murmured sweet words to them and worked as hard as her husband to find them food. There were now so many mouths to be fed that they flew by day as well as by night, and often the Little Boy in the room below thought he heard distant thunder when it was only the Swifts coming down the chimney with food for their babies. All sorts of tiny winged creatures were brought them to eat, for Swifts catch all their food as they fly, and that means that they can feed upon only such creatures as also fly.

When they were stretching up to reach the food, Mrs. Swift would say to the children: “Now learn to move carefully, for if you should get over the edge of the nest you will tumble down into that fireplace of which I have told you.”

When he was feeding them Mr. Swift would say: “You may open your bills, but not one of you must move beyond that twig. Do you understand?”

Three of them obeyed without asking questions, but the eldest brother was always trying to see just how far he could go without tumbling, and he would talk back to his father.

“You don’t care if I put one wing out, do you?” he would ask.

“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 pass. 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, bumping, and scraping down into the fireplace below. He could not fly up, for his wings were not strong enough to carry him up such a narrow space, 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 shiny 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 shining, 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 nobody 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 snowball 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, nobody 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 mush! 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 Cocks 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.”

Then the little Chickens were very badly scared indeed. They backed away as quickly as they could, and crawled in beside their mother. She told them to go back; that the Robins couldn’t hurt them, and that she was ashamed to have them act so Chicken-hearted.

“Let us get under your wings!” they said. “Please let us get under your wings!” And they followed, peeping, after her, as she marched to and fro in the narrow coop. Sometimes they got so near her feet that she almost knocked them over, and at last they quite gave up trying to cuddle down under her, and got together in little groups in the back part of the coop.

“Had enough?” asked the brother at last.

“Yes, indeed,” answered his sister. “I can’t swallow any more now. I’m just making believe because you are not through.”

“All right!” said he.

He turned to the Chickens. “Now you may come,” he said. “But another time get out of our way more quickly.” Then they turned their backs and hopped off. They didn’t want to try flying, because that would show how very young they were.

“We did it,” exclaimed those two naughty children. “Did you ever see such little Geese as those Chickens? But oh, what if our parents should find it out?”

“See here,” chirped their mother, who could not speak very plainly because she had two large Earthworms hanging in wriggling loops from her bill, “Here is a lovely lunch for you.”

“Give it to Brother,” said the little sister. “He always wants more than I.”

“Oh, no. Give it to Sister,” said he. “I don’t mean to be selfish.”

“You shall both have some,” said their mother, tucking a large Worm down each unwilling throat. “Little birds will never be big birds unless they eat plenty of the right kind of food. I will bring you more.”

When she was gone they looked at each other. “I just can _not_ eat another billful,” said the sister.

“And I won’t!” said the brother. After a while he added, “Is there any of that mush sticking to my bill?”

“No,” said the sister. “Is there any on mine?”

They did not feel at all sure that their mother would have let them eat so much mush if she had been asked. They wondered if it would make them sick. They began to think about the stomach-ache, and felt sure that they had one--that is to say, two--one apiece, you know.

Over in the garden, Mrs. Robin said to her husband, “Do you know what those children have done? It was a very ill-bred, Sparrow-like trick. They scared the little Chickens away, and ate all they could of their mush. I am dreadfully ashamed of them, but I shall pretend I did not see it.”

“Make them eat plenty of Worms,” suggested Mr. Robin.

“Just what I am going to do,” answered his wife. “It won’t really hurt them to overeat for once in their lives, and it will punish them very well.”

That was why Mr. and Mrs. Robin worked so especially hard all morning, and made so many trips in under the gooseberry bush. The two young Robins who were there kept insisting that they didn’t need any more, and that they really couldn’t eat another Worm. After they said this, Mrs. Robin always looked sharply at them and asked, “What have you children been doing? Young birds should always want all the Worms their parents can bring them.”

The little Robins were not brave enough to tell what they had done. You know it often takes more courage to confess a fault than it does to scare people. So whenever their mother said this they agreed to eat one more Worm apiece, and choked and gulped it down. It was a dreadful morning for them.

Inside the Chicken-coop the old Hen was trying to settle down again, and the Chickens were talking it over.

“Wasn’t it dreadful?” asked one. “I didn’t know that Robins were so fierce.”

“Mother said that we shouldn’t be afraid of them,” cried another, “but I guess she’d be afraid her own self if she wasn’t in that coop. She’d be ’fraider if she was little, too.”

“I’m glad they didn’t eat it all,” said a third Chicken. “When do you suppose they’ll come again?”

“Every day,” said another, a Chicken who always expected bad things to happen. “Perhaps they will come two times a day! Maybe they’ll even come three!”

But they didn’t. They didn’t come at all. And they never wanted corn-meal mush again.

THE SYSTEMATIC YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO

The people who lived in the big house were much worried about the maple trees which shaded the sidewalk around the place. It was spring now, and they feared another such summer as the last, when the lawn had been covered with fine, healthy, large maple leaves, gnawed off by hungry Caterpillars. One could be sure they were not blown or knocked off, for each stem was neatly eaten through at about the length of a fir needle from the leaf. The lawn did not look well, and the Man who cared for it grumbled and scolded under his breath as he went around raking them up. He could not see that the Caterpillars were of any use in the world. The birds thought differently, but he was a busy Man and not used to thinking of things in that way.

Now spring had come again, and every day the people looked for more leaves on their lawn. They had not found them yet, because the Caterpillars were not old enough to nibble through the stems. Then, one morning while they were eating their breakfast, these people heard a new voice outside. It was not a sweet voice. It sounded somewhat like a thumping on rough boards. It was saying, “Kuk-kuk-kuk!”

Some men who were passing by stopped to look up at the trees, then shook their heads and went on. The Little Boy wanted to leave his breakfast and go out at once to find the new bird, but he had to stay where he was, eat slowly, and fold his napkin before he was allowed to do this. When he went, the Lady and the Gentleman went with him. None of them could see the bird, although they heard his “kuk-kuk-kuk!” in first one tree and then another.

“I am sure that is a Yellow-billed Cuckoo,” said the Lady, “and if it is, he has come for the Caterpillars that are spoiling our trees.”

“Why, Mother?” asked the Little Boy. “How do you know? You didn’t see him.”

“If you had your eyes shut, and I spoke to you,” she replied, “wouldn’t you known whose voice it was?”