Chapter 4

Jolly Robin often complained about the wailing of Willie Whip-poor-will. Willie lived in the woods, which were not far from the orchard. And it was annoying to Jolly to hear his call, "_Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will_," repeated over and over again for some two hours after Jolly's bed-time. Neither did Jolly Robin enjoy being awakened by that same sound an hour or two before he wanted to get up in the morning. And what was still worse, on moonlight nights Willie sometimes sang his favorite song from sunset to sunrise.

"What a doleful ditty!" said Jolly Robin. "I must see this fellow and tell him that he ought to change his tune." But the trouble was that Jolly Robin did not like to roam about at night. He was always too sleepy to do that. And in the daytime Willie Whip-poor-will was silent, resting or sleeping upon the ground in the woods.

But a day came at last when Jolly Robin stumbled upon Willie Whip-poor-will, sound asleep where he lived. And Jolly lost no time in waking him up.

"I've been wanting to speak to you for some time," he told the drowsy fellow.

"What's the matter?" Willie Whip-poor-will asked, with a startled stare. "Are the woods on fire?"

"No!" said Jolly Robin. "I want to talk with you--that's all." And he was as cheerful as anyone could have wished.

But Willie Whip-poor-will looked very cross.

"This is a queer time to make a call!" he grumbled. "I don't like to be disturbed in broad daylight. I supposed everybody knew that midnight is the proper time for a visit."

"But I'm always asleep then," Jolly Robin objected, "unless it's a moonlight night and you happen to be singing on my side of the woods."

Willie Whip-poor-will looked almost pleasant when Jolly said that.

"So you stay awake to hear me!" he exclaimed. "I see you like my singing."

Jolly Robin laughed, because Willie had made such a funny mistake.

"You're wrong!" he said. "In fact, I've been wanting to talk with you about that very thing. I want you to change your song, which is a very annoying one. It's altogether too disagreeable. I'll teach you my '_Cheerily-cheerup_' song. You'll like it much better, I think. And I'm sure all your neighbors will.... Why not learn the new song right now?" Jolly asked.

But Willie Whip-poor-will made no answer. Looking at him more closely, Jolly Robin was amazed to see that he was sound asleep.

"Here, wake up!" Jolly cried, as he nudged Willie under a wing.

Again Willie Whip-poor-will sprang up with a bewildered expression.

"Hullo!" he said. "What's the trouble? Did a tree fall?"

"You went to sleep while I was talking to you," Jolly Robin explained.

"Oh!" said Willie Whip-poor-will. "That doesn't matter. You must be used to that." And the words were scarcely out of his mouth before he had fallen asleep again.

Jolly Robin looked at him in a puzzled way. He didn't see how he could teach Willie his "_Cheerily-cheerup_" song unless he could keep him awake. But he thought he ought to try; so he gave Willie a sharp tweak with his bill.

"Did you hear what I said about your singing?" he shouted right in Willie's ear.

Willie Whip-poor-will only murmured sleepily:

"It's rheumatism. I just felt a twinge of it."

He had no idea what Jolly Robin was talking about.

XXII

SHOCKING MANNERS

Jolly Robin tried his best to rouse Willie Whip-poor-will out of his daytime nap. But he had to admit to himself at last that his efforts were in vain. It was plain that Willie was too sleepy to understand what was said to him. And as for his learning a new song when he was in that condition, that was entirely out of the question.

"I'll have to wait till sunset," Jolly Robin sighed at last. "That's the time that Willie always wakes up and begins to sing.... I'll come back here late this afternoon."

So he left the woods; and he was busy every moment all the rest of the day.

Shortly before sunset Jolly Robin went back to the place in the woods where he had left Willie Whip-poor-will sleeping. But Willie was no longer there. He had left only a few minutes before Jolly's arrival. And as Jolly sat on a low branch of a tree and looked all around, just as the sun dropped behind the mountain, a voice began singing from some point deeper in the woods. "_Whip-poor-will! Whip-poor-will!_" That was the way the song went.

"There's Willie now!" Jolly Robin exclaimed. And he flew off at once to find his night-prowling friend. He knew that Willie Whip-poor-will was some distance away, because he couldn't hear the low "_chuck!_" with which Willie always began his song, as a sort of warning that he was going to sing, and that nobody could stop him.

Jolly had a good deal of trouble finding the singer, because Willie Whip-poor-will didn't stay in one place. Between his bursts of song he coursed about hunting for insects, which he caught as he flew. So it was not surprising that Jolly did not come upon him until it had grown almost dark in the woods.

"Hullo!" said Willie as soon as he saw Jolly Robin. "I haven't seen you for a long time."

Jolly Robin laughed merrily.

"Don't you remember my calling on you about noon to-day?" he asked.

"You must be mistaken," Willie Whip-poor-will replied. "I've been asleep since sunrise--until a little while ago. And nobody came to see me."

"You've forgotten," said Jolly. "But it's no matter. I can talk to you now just as well. I want to speak to you about your singing." Jolly paused then; and he yawned widely, for it was his bed-time that very moment.

"Talk fast, please!" said Willie Whip-poor-will. "I haven't finished my breakfast yet. And I'm pretty hungry."

It seemed queer, to Jolly Robin, that anyone should be eating his breakfast right after sunset. And he was about to say something about the matter. But just as he opened his mouth to speak he yawned again. And then, without realizing what he was doing, he tucked his head under his wing and fell asleep on the limb of the cedar tree where he was sitting.

Willie Whip-poor-will looked at him in astonishment.

"What shocking manners!" he exclaimed. "He went to sleep while we were talking. But I suppose he knows no better."

Willie would have liked to know what Jolly Robin was going to say about his singing. But he was so hungry that he left Jolly asleep upon his perch and hurried off to look for more insects.

Since it was a moonlight night, Willie Whip-poor-will spent all the time until sunrise in hunting for food. Now and then he stopped to rest and sing his queer song, which Jolly Robin did not like.

But Jolly Robin slept so soundly that for once Willie's singing never disturbed him at all.

XXIII

A COLD GREETING

When Jolly Robin awoke a little before dawn, after his night in the woods, he did not know at first where he was.

Now, it happened that just as he was awaking in the cedar tree, Willie Whip-poor-will was going to sleep on the ground right beneath him. So when Jolly at last looked down and spied his friend, he remembered what had happened.

"My goodness!" he said with a nervous laugh. "I fell asleep here last night! And I wonder what my wife will say when I get home." He would have liked to try to rouse Willie Whip-poor-will and speak to him about learning the new song. But he was so uneasy on account of what his wife might say about his having stayed away from home all night that he flew away as fast as he could go.

It was exactly as he had feared. When he reached his house in the orchard his wife greeted him quite coldly. In fact, she hardly spoke to him at all. And when Jolly told her, with a good many chuckles, what a joke he had played on himself--falling asleep as he had, while making a call upon Willie Whip-poor-will--she did not even smile.

"I should think you would be ashamed of yourself," she told him. "Willie Whip-poor-will is a good-for-nothing rascal. Everybody talks about the way he prowls through the woods all night and seldom goes to bed before morning. And his wife is no better than he is. They're too shiftless even to build themselves a nest. Mrs. Whip-poor-will leaves her eggs on the ground. And that's enough to know about _her_.

"If you like to spend your time with such trash you'd better go over to the woods and live," Mrs. Robin said. And then she turned her back on her husband and set to work to clean her nest.

Jolly and his wife happened to have five small children at the time. They were so young that they had never left home, not having learned to fly. And they were all clamoring for their breakfast.

Thinking to please his wife, Jolly Robin went off and began gathering angleworms for the youngsters. But when he brought them home his wife told him that he had better eat them himself.

"I am quite able to feed my own children without any help from a person who doesn't come home until after daybreak," she said.

And she acted like that for two whole days. Naturally, Jolly Robin felt very uncomfortable during that time. And ever afterward he took good care to have nothing to do with Willie Whip-poor-will.

He did wish, however, that Willie would learn a new song. For Jolly disliked more than ever to hear that "_Whip-poor-will! Whip-poor-will!_" repeated over and over again. It always reminded him of the time he made his wife angry by spending the night away from home.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Tale of Jolly Robin, by Arthur Scott Bailey