Chapter 2 MISTER ROBERT ROBIN SEES THE FARMER'S NEW MALTESE CAT

One fine afternoon Mister Robert Robin was down under the pasture-field brush trying to find some brown bugs. He had caught one, but two more got away from him, so he was beginning to feel discouraged, when he happened to look up and see Mrs. Henrietta Partridge sitting on her nest under a beechwood bush.

Up to that time Mister Robert Robin had not known that Mrs. Partridge had a nest, although he had suspected it.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Partridge!" said Robert Robin, as he made a very polite bow. "This is wonderful weather we are having!"

"Good afternoon, Mister Robin!" said Mrs. Partridge. "Yes, it is fine weather, but for every nice day that we get, we are almost sure to have two bad, stormy days!"

"Nonsense, Mrs. Partridge!" said Robert Robin, "I have always noticed that the more fine weather we have, the more we get! I claim that we are going to have the nicest summer this year that we have had since the year we had so many cherries!"

"I do hope that you are right, Mister Robin!" said Mrs. Partridge. "Major Partridge is always joking me because I am expecting bad weather, but I have noticed that no matter how many nice days we have, it always turns around and rains, before it gets through!"

"Certainly! It should rain, or we would all die of thirst! If no rain came out of the sky, we would not have any cherries, and the bugs would all be so dry there would not be any taste to them! We must have rain, Mrs. Partridge! We must have rain!"

"Do you enjoy rainy weather, Mister Robin?" asked Mrs. Partridge.

"I like wet weather, when it is not too wet; I like dry weather when it is not too dry; I like warm weather when it is not too warm, and I like cool weather when it is not too cool! And I have a song for each kind of weather!" said Robert Robin as he again started hunting for brown bugs.

"You seem to be looking for something, Mister Robin!" said Mrs. Partridge.

"Yes, I am hunting brown bugs!" said Robert Robin; "two of them hid under the leaves, but there must be a few more left!"

"Stir the leaves up with your feet!" said Mrs. Partridge, "then if there are any brown bugs under them you will be able to catch them!"

"I cannot make my feet go backwards!" said Robert Robin. "My feet insist on hopping! I think that I must be clumsy with my legs, for even the farmer's big rooster can scratch the ground and dig up wonderful things. I saw him kick a worm clear through the fence!"

"He must be very strong!" said Mrs. Partridge.

"Strong! I should say he is strong! Even Percy Hawk is afraid of him, and never goes near the little chickens when that big rooster is watching him!"

"Major Partridge is very athletic!" said Mrs. Partridge. "He exercises a great deal on his drum!"

"Here comes the Major now!" said Robert Robin.

"How do you do, sir!" said Major Partridge to Robert Robin.

"Good afternoon, Major!" said Robert Robin. "I have just been telling Mrs. Partridge about how strong the farmer's big rooster was, and how he could dig with his feet!"

"Did you ever see me dig with my feet?" asked Major Partridge.

"I do not remember ever having seen you dig with your feet, Major Partridge, but the farmer's big rooster kicked a worm clear through the fence!"

"Kicking a little worm is nothing! Once I kicked a stone from hither to yonder, and Billy Rabbit asked me to help him dig his next hole!" declared Major Partridge, as he stood very straight and put his chest out. "If you have a few moments to spare I will dig these leaves up for you!"

Then Major Partridge began kicking the leaves in all directions, and Robert Robin began catching the brown bugs, and Mrs. Partridge came from her nest, and found the ripe partridge berries which Major Partridge was uncovering, but when the Major happened to see the ripe red partridge berries he forgot all about kicking the leaves, and he and Mrs. Partridge ate all the berries and never invited Robert Robin to have a berry.

"You seem to like partridge berries!" said Robert Robin.

"Yes, we are very fond of them!" said Mrs. Partridge. "They are my favorite fruit!"

"I seldom eat them!" said Robert Robin. "My favorite fruit is a ripe red cherry!"

"I thought that cherries were purple when they were ripe," said Mrs. Partridge.

"Some kinds of wild cherries are purple when they are ripe, but the cherries which grow on the trees near the farmer's house are red when they are ripe, and they are ever so much better than wild cherries!" said Robert Robin.

"I would like some of the farmer's ripe red cherries, but I would never dare go so near the farmer's house. He would be almost sure to see me and shoot me with his gun!" said Mrs. Partridge, as she got back on her nest and snuggled her eggs.

Major Partridge heard Bob White calling to him, so he strutted over to see what Bob White wanted, but Robert Robin felt like visiting a little more, so he said to Mrs. Partridge:

"You were speaking about being afraid that the farmer would shoot you; he never shoots at me, but one time he threw a stone at me when I was picking some of the cherries to bring home to my babies. He seemed very angry about something."

"Perhaps he did not like you to be picking his cherries," said Mrs. Partridge.

"They were not his cherries!" said Robert Robin. "They were on the tree, and belonged to whoever got them first!"

"Men are great pests!" said Mrs. Partridge. "Old Mister Crow was telling me that he could remember when the country was all woods, and there were more of us partridges than there were men. Those must have been the 'good old days!'"

"That farmer seems to think that he owns all the trees, and all the fences, and all the fields!" said Robert Robin. "The rude manner he uses towards his horses and the way he slaps them with the straps, and the way he shouts at them is very disgusting to me! If I were a great big horse, I would not let a little man, only one fifth of my size, boss me around like that farmer does his big horses!"

"Neither would I!" exclaimed Mrs. Partridge. "But I shall never let that farmer catch me if I can help it!"

"Then he has cats around his house and barn!" said Robert Robin. "Cats are very bad animals!"

"Yes, they are!" agreed Mrs. Partridge. "And I wish that dog of his would stay out of our woods! He is always prowling around, smelling of things, and I expect that he will find my nest, and mercy knows what I would ever do then!"

"Gerald Fox bit him once!" said Robert Robin. "But why not make your nest up in a tree, Mrs. Partridge? It is much safer from dogs!"

"My mother built hers on the ground, and what was good enough for my mother ought to be good enough for me!" said Mrs. Partridge, and just then Robert Robin heard his wife calling to him to come and keep watch of the nest while she went out for lunch.

"Where have you been all day?" asked Mrs. Robin. "I have been calling, and calling, and I was beginning to get worried for fear something dreadful had happened to you! You must have found many good things to eat, for your crop sticks out like a chicken's!"

"I am very sorry if I kept you waiting, my dear!" said Robert Robin. "But Major Partridge kicked up the leaves so that I caught a whole cropful of brown bugs. He must have made so much noise that I did not hear you calling to me!"

"You are usually so prompt in coming when I call, that I was sure you would have a good reason!" said Mrs. Robin. "Now I will go over and get my lunch, but I do not care for brown bugs to-day. I will get me some black bugs, there must be plenty of them over in Black-bug Swamp."

So Mrs. Robin went to Black-bug Swamp and found plenty of black bugs, and on the way back she stopped near Mrs. Partridge's nest to get one or two brown bugs for dessert.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Robin!" said Mrs. Partridge, and Mrs. Robin jumped and looked all around, but she did not see Mrs. Partridge.

"Your husband and I have just had a nice long visit!" continued Mrs. Partridge, and Mrs. Robin kept jumping around and trying to see who was talking to her. But Mrs. Partridge's feathers were so nearly the color of the leaves, that Mrs. Robin might not have seen her at all, had she not moved a little.

"Why! Good afternoon, Mrs. Partridge! I could hear you talking to me but I could not see you! So Mister Robin has been visiting with you! He surely does like to visit!"

"So does Major Partridge! He will talk all day if he can coax some one to listen to him. He is over there now visiting with Bob White. What those two can find to talk so much about is a mystery to me! It is real funny to listen to them! They both brag about the big things they have done or are going to do.

"That little puff ball of a Bob White was saying the other day that he was almost ready to whip Mister Horned Owl. You would think to hear him talk that he was larger than Mister Owl!"

"Mister Robin is very apt to boast about himself, when he is talking to strangers!" said Mrs. Robin.

"Major Partridge is the funniest thing!" said Mrs. Partridge. "He is desperately afraid of snakes, but when Bob White was telling about his going to whip Mister Owl, Major Partridge threw his chest out, and swelled himself up, and said in a very gruff voice, 'To-morrow, I think, if the weather is good, I shall drive all of the snakes out of our woods!'"

"That must have sounded funny!" said Mrs. Robin. "But I wish that all the snakes were driven from the woods, they are such ugly-looking things!"

"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.

"The largest family I ever had was five, and one of them kept falling out of the nest!" said Mrs. Robin.

"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.

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