Dooryard Stories Part 12

"There are two ways of hurrying," they often said. "One is the jerky way and the other is our way, of being sure and steady. Of course our way is the better. You will see that we do just as much and make less fuss."

Silvertip came to the edge of the porch and looked around. He was licking his lips, and every bird on the lawn was happy to see that, for it meant that he had just finished his breakfast. His eyes gleamed and his tail waved stiffly as he saw the fat Robins so near.

He even crouched down and took four short steps, quivering his body and trying his muscles. Then he remembered how wet the gra.s.s was and turned back with a long sigh. After all, his stomach was full and he could afford to wait until the gra.s.s was dry. The Robins would be there then, and if they kept on eating Worms at this rate, they would be growing plump and juicy all the time. He began to lick himself all over, as every truly tidy Cat does after eating. By the time he had finished the tip of his tail he was sleepy, so he went into the kitchen and dozed by the fire.

The front door opened with a bang, and the Little Boy stood there, shouting and waving a piece of red paper with a string tied to it.

"See my kite!" he cried. "Whee-ee-ee!"

Five birds who had been feeding near flew off in wild alarm. "Now why did he do that?" asked one, after they had settled down elsewhere.

n.o.body answered. None but Little Boys understand these things, and even they do not always tell.

The Lady came to the door behind him and helped him start away. He proudly carried a small new umbrella, and the precious kite fluttered out behind him. When he was outside the gate, he peeped through it and called back: "Good-by, Mother! I'm going to school to learn everyfing.

I'll be a good Boy. Good-by!" Then he ran down the walk with the umbrella held back over his shoulder and the rain falling squarely in his face. All that the birds could see of the Little Boy then was his fat legs bobbing along below the umbrella.

"There!" said all the birds together. "There! Silvertip is asleep and the Little Boy has gone to school. Now we can take comfort."

When the morning was nearly past, and the birds felt so safe that they had grown almost careless, Silvertip wakened and felt hungry. He walked slowly out of the kitchen door and looked at the gra.s.s. The sun was now shining, and it was no longer sparkling with tiny drops. He crept down the steps and around to a place under a big spruce tree, the lower branches of which lay along the ground. A fat Robin was hunting near by.

Silvertip watched her hungrily, and if you were a Cat you might have done exactly the same thing. So you must not blame Silvertip. He was creeping, creeping, creeping nearer, and never looking away from her, when the Little Boy came tramping across the gra.s.s. He had come in by the gate of the driveway, and was walking straight toward Silvertip, who neither saw nor heard him.

Then the Little Boy saw what was happening, and dropped his bright paper chain on the gra.s.s beside him. "G'way!" he cried, waving his umbrella. "G'way! Don't you try to eat any birds 'round here. My father doesn't 'low it. G'way! G'way! Else I'll tell my mother that you are a _bad_ Cat."

Silvertip fled under the porch, the Robin flew up onto the s...o...b..ll bush, and all around the birds sang the praises of the good Little Boy with the umbrella. But the Little Boy didn't know this. He stood by the porch and dangled his pretty paper chain until Silvertip forgave him and came out to play. Then they ran together into the house, and the birds heard him shouting, "Mother! Mother! Where are you? I want to give Silvertip some cream. He is so very hungry that he most had to eat up a Robin, only I wouldn't let him."

THE PERSISTENT PHBE

It is not often that a Phbe will nest anywhere except near running water, and n.o.body but the Phbes themselves will ever know why this pair chose to build under a porch of the big house. When they came there on their wedding trip the other birds supposed that they were only visiting, and it was not until a Catbird heard them discussing different porches that any one really believed they might come there to live.

Mrs. Phbe was eager to begin at once, and could not pa.s.s a soft bit of moss or an unusually good blade of gra.s.s without stopping to look it over and think how she could weave it in. "I see no use in waiting," said she. "I know just as much about building now as I shall after a while, and I should like a home of my own. It makes my bill fairly tingle to see all these fine gra.s.ses and mosses waiting to be used. And the worst of it is," she added, "that if we wait, some other bird may get them instead."

Mr. Phbe wanted to think it over a little longer. He was older than his wife and had been married before. "Phbe!" he would exclaim. "Wait a day. You know we are building by a house to please you, now wait one more day to please me."

That, you see, was quite right and perfectly fair, for it is _not_ fair for one person to decide everything in a family, and it was right for the wife to wait as long as she could. She could not, of course, wait many days, for there were eggs to be laid, and when it was time for them, the nest had to be ready. Mr. Phbe knew this and wasted no time.

"We cannot build on a rock," said he, "because there are no rocks here, and we cannot build under a bridge because there is no bridge here. My other wife and I lived under a bridge." Then he stood silent for a long time and looked down at his black feet. When he spoke of his first wife he always seemed sad. The second Mrs. Phbe had not liked this at first, but he was so good and kind to her, and let her have her own way so much more than some husbands would, that she had begun to feel happier about it.

There is reason to think that she chose an unusual nesting-place just to see how far she could coax him out of his old ways. Perhaps, too, she thought that there would be less in such a place to remind him of his first wife. Another thing which had made her come to feel differently was remembering that if he died or left her she would marry again. Then, you know, she might want to think and talk about her first husband.

She was very proud of him, and watched him as he stood thinking. His upper feathers were deep brown, his under ones a dingy white, and the outer edges of some of his tail-feathers were light colored. His most beautiful features were his black bill and feet and the crest which he could raise on the top of his head. Mrs. Phbe had the same coloring as her husband, yet she always insisted that he was the better looking of the two, while he insisted, as a good and wise husband should, that she was by far the handsomer.

Now Mr. Phbe was speaking. "We have decided to build on this house," said he, "and under a porch. Still, there are four large ones and we must find out which is the best. You feed on the shady side and I will feed on the sunny side of the house. Then we shall see how much these people use their porches."

"I'll do it," answered his wife, "but isn't it a pity that there are people living in this house? It would be so much pleasanter if it were empty."

Mrs. Phbe perched on a maple branch on the shady side and watched two porches. She thought she would like the front one the better, and had already chosen her window ledge, when she noticed a pair of English Sparrows dragging straws and feathers toward it and disappearing inside the cornice. "Not there," she said firmly, as she clutched the branch even more tightly with her pretty black feet. "I will not have quarrelsome neighbors, and I could never bring our children up to be good if the young Sparrows were always near, showing them how to be naughty." Then she darted after a Fly, caught and swallowed him, and was back on her perch.

"I wonder how the back one would do?" she said. "There are no steps leading to it, and those sweetbrier bushes all around it would keep Boys from climbing onto the railing."

She flew near and saw the Maid kneading bread by one window. A door stood open into the big kitchen, and through two other windows she could look into a pleasant dining-room. "I wouldn't mind that," she said. "If I have plenty to eat myself, I would just as soon see other people eating. We like different things anyway. I dare say those people never tasted an insect in their lives and do not even know the flavor of a choice Fly." Then she swallowed a careless Bug who had mistaken her for an English Sparrow and flown when he should have stayed hidden. Mrs. Phbe was much interested in the nest, but not so much as to let an insect escape. Oh, never so much as that!

Mr. Phbe watched the back porch on his side. Some Robins were building on a window-ledge there, which he thought exceeding imprudent. But then he was not surprised, for everybody knows how careless Robins are. That is why so many of them have to leave their nests--because they are built where no nest should be. Mr. Phbe could tell at a glance that no bird should build there. Woodbine climbed over the pillars and fell in a thick curtain from the cornice, and beside the door stood a saucerful of milk. "That means a Cat,"

said he, "a Cat who stays on this porch most of the time and always comes here when he is hungry. And when he tires of milk he will climb up that woodbine and finish with young Robin. Or, perhaps," he added, "I should say that he will finish _a_ young Robin."

The front porch on his side was sunshiny and quiet, but there was the woodbine again, and with the Cat so near. He next looked at the portico over the front door. Under the roof of this was a queer shiny, thin thing with a loop of black thread hanging down in it. He tried to get the thread, but only hit and hurt his bill against the shiny, thin stuff. Then he remembered seeing a bright light in it the night before when he had been awakened by a bad dream. "That will never do,"

he said. "It is not good for children to sleep with a light near. One would want to be catching insects there, too," he added, "when he should be sleeping. There must be many drawn by the light."

So it ended in the couple building under the dining-room porch on the shelf-like top of a column. Mrs. Phbe chose this instead of a window-ledge because from here she could look into the window while brooding her eggs. "You may laugh at me all you choose," said she to her husband, "for I did wish the house empty. Since it cannot be, however, I might as well see what the people in it do."

"I was not laughing, my dear," answered her husband meekly (you remember that he had been married before). "I was only smiling with pleasure at our fine nest. You have so much taste in arranging gra.s.ses!"

That was the way in which the Phbes began housekeeping. It was not always easy, sitting on the nest day after day as Mrs. Phbe had to, with only a chance now and then to stretch her tired legs. She was even glad that people lived in the house. "It gives me something to think about," said she, "although I do get much out of patience with them sometimes. Much they know about bringing up children! That Boy of theirs eats only three times a day. How can they ever hope to raise him unless he eats more? Now, I expect to feed my children all the time, and that is the way to do." Here she darted away to catch a Fly who came blundering along.

"It's a good thing for that Fly that I got him," she said, smilingly.

"It saved him from being caught in the Spider's web over there, and I am sure it is much pleasanter to be swallowed whole by a polite Phbe than to be nibbled at by a horrid Spider."

Mr. Phbe sometimes brought her a dainty morsel, but he spent much of his time by the hydrant. "There is not much chance to bathe," he said, as he wallowed around in the little pool beside it, "but it is something to smell water. You know we Phbes like to fly in and out of ponds and rivers, even when we cannot stop for a real bath." His favorite perch was on the top of a tall pole covered with cinnamon vine, in the flower garden. Here he would sit for a whole morning at a time, darting off now and then for an insect, but always returning to the same place and position. He did not even face the other way for a change.

The little Phbes were hatched much like other birds, and were about as good and about as naughty as children usually are. Mrs.

Phbe was positive that they were remarkable in every way. Mr.

Phbe, having raised other broods, did not think them quite so wonderful, although he admitted that there was not another nestling on the place to compare with them. "Still," as he would modestly remark, "we must remember that we are the only Phbes here, and that it is not fair to compare them with the young of other birds. You could not expect our neighbors' children to be as bright as they."

Unfortunately there were only two little Phbes, so each parent could give all his time to one. The mother cared for the son and the father for the daughter. When it was time for them to learn to catch their own Flies, these children did not want to do so. The father made his daughter learn, in spite of the fuss she made. He gave her his old perch on the cinnamon-vine pole, and told her that she must try to catch every insect that flew past. This was after she had been out of the nest several days, and had learned to use her feet and wings.

"If you do not," he said, "I shall not feed you anything." When she pouted her bill, he paid no attention to it, and she soon stopped.

There is no use in pouting, you know, unless somebody is looking at you and wishing that you wouldn't. Perhaps it was because he had brought up children before that Mr. Phbe was so wise.

Mrs. Phbe meant to be very firm also, but when her son whimpered and said that he couldn't, he knew he couldn't, catch a single one, and that he was sure he would tumble to the ground if he tried it, she always felt sorry for him and said: "Perhaps you can to-morrow." Then she would catch food for him again.

This is how it happened that, day after day, a plump and strong young Phbe sat on a branch of the syringa bush and let his tired mother feed him. At last his father quite lost patience and interfered. "My dear," he said to his wife, "I will be with our son to-day, and you may have a rest."

"You are very kind," she replied, "but he is so used to having me that I think I might better----"

"I said," interrupted her husband, "that I would be with our son to-day. I advise you to fly away with our daughter and show her something of the world." Mrs. Phbe did not often hear him speak in that tone of voice. When he did, she always agreed with him.

As soon as father and son were alone, the father said: "Now you are going to catch Flies before sunset. You have let your poor mother nearly work her feathers off for you. (Of course, feathers do not come off so, but this was his way of speaking.) She is very tired, and you are not to act like this again. There comes a Fly. Catch him!"

The young Phbe made a wild dash, missed his Fly, and came back to the syringa bush whimpering. "I knew I couldn't," he said. "I tried as hard as I could, but he flew away."

"Yes," said his father. "You tried once, just once. You may have to try a hundred times before you catch one, but that is no reason why you should not try. Go for that Mosquito."

The son went, and missed him, of course. This time he knew better than to talk about it. He just flew back to his perch and looked miserable.

"I think you got a little nearer to this one," said his father. "Go for that Fly!"