HELPING THE ROBINS
All the afternoon after she learned about ants and their ways, Mary Jane was very quiet. Mrs. Merrill thought perhaps she was disappointed because Doris had had to go home right after lunch so she tried to be very sociable and kind to make up for the absent playmate.
"How would you like to make a new dress for Marie Georgiannamore?" she asked.
"Make it now, instead of taking my nap?" asked Mary Jane who sometimes disliked the hour of quiet that her mother had her take every afternoon. Of course she didn't really nap, that is, sleep; girls as big as she didn't need to Mrs. Merrill thought. But she did have to stay quietly in her own room and look at pictures or rest which ever she wished to do. Usually Mary Jane enjoyed the hour but sometimes she wished she could play straight through the day.
"Oh, no," replied Mrs. Merrill smiling, "you will want to take your rest the same as you always do. But when you get up, then we'll make Marie Georgiannamore a new dress."
"And while we're making it," asked Mary Jane, "will I have to stay in the house?"
"Why, of course, Mary Jane," replied Mrs. Merrill, "how funny you are! You wouldn't enjoy my making a doll dress while you were out doors, would you?"
"No-o-o," said Mary Jane doubtfully, "maybe I wouldn't. Only I 'pect I'd like it after it was done."
"Well," said Mrs. Merrill laughingly, "if you don't want a doll dress any more than that, you don't want one very badly—that's certain! You run along up to your room now and then, after you're dressed, I'll take my bag of darning out on the front porch—I think it's plenty warm enough to-day—and you may play in the yard. Would you like that, dear?"
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Mary Jane, "that's just what I want to do. And may I take the ant book upstairs?"
Mrs. Merrill said she could and helped her pull the big book out from the shelves.
"If this is what you are going to look at," she said as she handed the book to Mary Jane at the foot of the stairs, "better fix some pillows real comfy fashion in the window seat where the light is good." And Mary Jane promised she would.
The book proved more than usually interesting and Mrs. Merrill had to call the third time before Mary Jane heard her and realized that her hour was up.
"Wash your face and put on your pink smock, dear," called Mrs. Merrill, "and then come out to the porch. There's a robin in the front yard and you'll like to watch him."
Mary Jane scrambled her very fastest, which was pretty fast as you can guess, and in about three minutes was out on the porch inquiring for the robin.
There he was, big as life and busy as could be hunting his afternoon tea.
"Doesn't he know it isn't time for dinner till Daddah comes home?" asked
Mary Jane.
"He doesn't pay much attention to time," laughed Mrs. Merrill, "he likes to eat all the day long. It makes no difference to him whether he eats in the morning or afternoon."
Mary Jane watched him curiously as he pecked and dug and then she suddenly exclaimed, "But he didn't eat it, mother! I know he didn't eat it! I saw him fly away with it!"
"Then I expect he's carrying it to his babies," said Mrs. Merrill.
"Where are his babies?" demanded Mary Jane as she sat down on the porch step to hear more.
"I'm sure I don't know, dear," said her mother. "I didn't notice which direction he went, did you?"
"Yes, he flew around toward the back yard," answered Mary Jane quickly, "I saw him. Does his whole family live in a nest like you've told me about or does he have a hole and a city and everything like the ants in the book?'
"His whole family live in one nest," replied Mrs. Merrill, "the father robin and the another robin and all the little robins—sometimes several of them. It's pretty crowded perhaps, while the robin babies are growing, but they like it. I expect if you go around to the back yard and watch, you may see what tree Mr. Robin goes to with his worms. That will tell you what tree his nest is in."
Mary Jane ran around to the back yard and that was the last Mrs. Merrill saw of her till she called her to get ready for dinner some time later.
Mr. Merrill was late to dinner, but when he came Mary Jane asked him all the questions that her mother had been unable to answer.
"Wait a minute!" exclaimed he. "Where did you see this robin that you're talking about?"
"In the front yard and in the back yard," said Mary Jane, "both of them."
"Then I'll venture to guess that it's the very same robin whose nest I discovered this morning," said Mr. Merrill. "I meant to tell you about it but was in such a hurry to get away I forgot."
"Oh, did you see his nest?" exclaimed Mary Jane excitedly; "his really truly for sure nest, Daddah?"
"That I did," replied her father, "and I'll show it to you."
"Let's go now," cried Mary Jane. "Won't you please excuse us, mother?" And she slipped down from her chair.
"Too late now," said her father, "might as well climb back and finish your dinner. You can't find a bird's nest after dark—and you can see that it's almost dark now. You wait till morning and I'll show you that nest first thing."
"As soon as I'm dressed, Daddah?" asked Mary Jane.
"Before you're dressed," promised her father, with a twinkle in his eye, "you just see!"
Mary Jane was so excited she could hardly go to sleep that night and Mrs. Merrill laughingly said that her dreams would likely be a circus of ants and robins. But she must have been mistaken, because little girls who wake up as bright and early as Mary Jane did that next day, don't waste their nights a-dreaming.
"Daddah!" she called to her father in a loud whisper, "are you waked up?
Daddah!"
"Um-m," said her father sleepily, "what is it?"
"Did you forget the nest," asked the little girl, "it's light now."
"To be sure," replied her father, who by now was wide awake; "put on your slippers and come over by my bed and look."
Mary Jane reached down from her bed, picked up her dainty slippers and put them on; then she threw back the covers and hurried over to her father's bed.
At the back of the Merrill home, upstairs, was a broad sleeping porch, sheltered by wide eaves and completely screened. There, each in his or her own little bed, father and mother and Alice and Mary Jane slept every night. Of course each had their own room in the house, with a comfortable bed for daytime rests, and stormy nights and the like; but almost every night in the year all four of them slept out of doors. Just behind the sleeping porch was an old apple tree and it was to this tree that Mr. Merrill now pointed.
Mary Jane looked and looked and then, suddenly, she saw the nest! Set way back among the leaves it was and on it was sitting the mother bird.
"I expect the father bird is getting breakfast for the family," said Mr. Merrill, "and the mother is keeping the babies warm till they have something to eat. You better get dressed now, little girl," he added, "but you may come up here after breakfast and I guess that, if you watch quietly, you can get a glimpse of the babies."
As quickly as breakfast was over, Mary Jane hurried back up the stairs to the sleeping porch and, sure enough, the mother bird and the father bird were both gone and those cunning baby robins—four of them—were stretching way out of the nest! Mary Jane almost gasped at first she was that surprised; but she didn't call out, no, indeed! She kept very still and watched—and watched. And the longer she looked the more certain she became that something was wrong.
"They do open their mouths so funny," she thought to herself. "I know, I just know they wouldn't open their mouths so wide if something wasn't wrong."
She thought a few minutes and then an idea occurred to her. The robin babies were thirsty—of course!
"I know how I felt that time we took too long a ride and I got thirsty," she thought, "and their mother don't know and their father isn't here either. I'll just have to get them a drink!"
But how to get a drink to four baby robins in the old apple tree—that was a problem that Mary Jane couldn't figure out all at once. But she didn't give up, no, sir! She thought and thought, and then she spied the hose lying in the back yard.
The very thing!
Quick as a minute, she ran down the stairs, out the kitchen door and over to the hose. Yes, just as she had hoped, it was attached and ready for use. She ran up to the house wall, turned on the water (it took all her strength, but she didn't mind that), took one good look up at the apple tree to see just where the nest was, and then turned the hose that way.
But something didn't seem just right. Instead of liking it, and being very still because they were getting a good cold drink, those stupid robin babies chirped and cried and acted far from pleased.
"I know," thought Mary Jane, "they want it like rain," and she turned the hose nozzle high and straight so that the water would come down on the top of the nest.
But that wasn't any better or even as good as the first try; for the water, instead of coming down on the apple tree, came straight and wet onto Mary Jane herself! She was so startled that she screamed and dropped the hose without a thought of the robins she had meant to help.
And then there was a commotion! Mr. Merrill, who had come home for some papers he had forgotten, came running around the house; Father Robin darted out from the hedge and made straight for his nest; Mother Robin hurried up from the pine tree in Doris's yard and Mrs. Merrill, tea towel still in hand, ran out from the back porch.
"What ever is the matter?" she cried.
"I was just giving the baby robins a drink," sputtered Mary Jane, "and they didn't seem to like it!"
Mrs. Merrill gathered her into her arms, wetness and all, and held her close. "I thought something had happened to my little girl," she said. "You must come in and get dry clothes on, dear; then I'll tell you more about the babies and you'll understand why they don't like too much water."
"And I'll tell you something," said father. "If you like to learn about creatures and everything that grows, you meet me here at the back door step at five o'clock this afternoon and I'll tell you a secret."
"Oh, goody!" cried Mary Jane, as she clapped her wet hands. "Can't you tell it to me now?"
"I should say not!" said father importantly, "it's a secret! You'll have to wait till five o'clock!" And he hurried off to his work leaving Mary Jane to a day of wondering what might be coming—a pleasant sort of wondering, for father's secrets were always jolly ones.