CHAPTER VII

THE BIRDS ENLIST IN THE WAR

The next one to find poor sick after Bob White Quail had flown away, was Nibble Rabbit. “Hey, Stripes,” he said, “whatever is the matter?”

“I tried to eat all the potato bugs to keep my promise to help Tommy Peele—’deed and I did, Nibble. But I got too many inside of me all at once. They squirm and sting!”

Well, it didn’t take Nibble long to call Doctor Muskrat. And it didn’t take Doctor Muskrat long to stop the “squirming and stinging” Stripes thought was going on inside him. “You certainly prove that fighting those click-wings isn’t your regular job,” he said. “You can’t gorge on them. You must never eat more than three at a time without eating something else in between. Any meadowlark could tell you that.”

“They could, but they wouldn’t,” Stripes sniffed. He was feeling much better. “They flew away when they saw me coming.”

“They did?” cried Nibble. “Well, they’ve all come back again. You just ought to hear them. They’re——”

“Che-e-ep!” interrupted Bobby Robin, swooping down for a drink. “Ugh! I’m glad that’s over with!”

“What’s over with?” Doctor Muskrat was surprised to see how much he was drinking.

“Eating a potato bug!” chirped Bobby Robin. “I told that quail none of us thrushes could eat ’em, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s ruffling about like a kingbird, and he says he’ll peck the eyes out of any bird who refuses to try one. You just ought to see what’s going on and who he’s got to help him! But I must be flitting.”

“Where to?” asked Stripes. By now he was taking an interest in things.

“To send over everything I can find that has feathers in its wings,” said Bobby Robin. “Bob White needs ’em.”

And before he’d flown past Tad Coon’s tree, along came Miau the Catbird and told them exactly the same tale. And that cheered Stripes so much that he got up on his wobbly legs and staggered over to see what was going on.

He saw—oh, I can’t tell you everything he saw. For there were orange orioles and dark-red orioles and scarlet-red tanagers and blue-and-red bluebirds, and fawn-coloured cedarbirds, and black-and-white-and-tan bobolinks all eating and shouting, with the meadowlarks flying around as thick as gnats on a summer night, calling, “Catch ’em and e-e-eat ’em up!”

He saw Chewee the Chickadee leading a regiment of gorgeous black and white and blue and yellow and orange and green warblers in and out through the dark green leaves of the potato plants, urging them to “Pick! Peck! Pick all you see-ee-ee!” It was eggs Chewee was hunting. Every once in a while a whole cloud of birds would go winging off to feed in the woods and the grain-fields, and another cloud would come in and settle down to eating the potato-bug army again.

“Those good birds!” Stripes squealed joyfully, “I’ll never eat another egg!”

He was so grateful he just had to tell the first bird he met. That was Chaik the Bluejay, who was perched on a wild-apple tree in the fencerow. “Those nice, good birds,” he said. “I’m going right over to thank them.”

“Don’t you do it,” warned Chaik. “Don’t you say a word till they’re all finished, or they’ll fly away and never come back at all. They aren’t doing this for you; they’re doing it for Bob White Quail. If they thought for a minute it was because Bob White wanted you to stay here they’d say he was crazy.”

“I guess you’re right,” Stripes agreed sadly. “The meadowlarks flew away yesterday the very first minute they saw me. All the same I just wish they knew I hadn’t touched an egg since I came here—’cepting only Bob White’s and I paid up for those. And I never will again. What’s more, I won’t let any one else if I know anything about it. If they’d only let me bring my family to help I think we could even keep Slyfoot the Mink away.”

“Don’t mention it,” exclaimed Chaik. “I know birds. You can’t reason with them. They wouldn’t think of it. They wouldn’t even hear you.”

They’d been moving along as they talked, getting closer and closer to where the birds were busiest and noisiest.

“I can hear them all right enough,” Stripes had to shout. “Did you ever listen to such a racket? That little brown one is the loudest of all.”

“She’s Jenny Wren,” Chaik called back—you couldn’t talk low and hear even yourself. Besides, he thought no one was looking at anything but the fighting. He didn’t see the slim brown mate of Coquillicot the Thrasher slip out of the grass beside them. “Jenny left Johnny to watch her eggs while she got a drink—hours ago,” he went on. “She just loves to boss things. But poor Johnny thinks the hawk has got her.”

“It’s a wonder the hawk hasn’t caught someone, isn’t it?” Stripes said.

“No, it isn’t,” squawked Chaik. “Look up in that pickery pea-tree.” (He meant an acacia with long spiky thorns and blossoms like garden peas strung in tassels.)

Stripes squinted—he isn’t used to looking up—and finally shaded his eye under his paw. “What about it?” he asked in a puzzled way.

“Why, Bob White has it all filled with fighting kingbirds. They’d fly at an enemy and peck his eyes out. And if the hawk chased them they’d hide in the prickers where he couldn’t possibly catch them. The hawk knows—I say, Stripes, what do you suppose that Thrasher is telling them? They’re looking straight at us-”

But before Stripes could even think, Jenny Wren began to squawk, twice as loudly as before, “Murder! Help! Help!”