“You are old enough and strong enough to do for yourselves, so off you go. Your mother and I will look after Robinette, and keep an eye on you for a day or two to see how you get on. I hope the gardener will be considerate enough to leave those worm-enticing carrots in the ground, for then there will be plenty of food for us all. Now good-bye.”
Cock Robin, having dismissed the four, turned to his wife and Robinette.
“I hope, my dear, he was not hurt by his rough brothers and sisters?”
“No,” she replied, “he was not hurt; and I am now satisfied that his legs and wings are all they should be. As for his brains, he has more in his little head than all the others put together. I feel sure Robinette will have a history.”
Cock Robin put his head first to one side, then to the other, and gave a funny, chirrupy laugh.
“Ah! you mother birds are all alike; you think your special nursling is sure to turn out the flower of the flock.”
“Let us fly away. There is an uncomfortable feeling about my feathers, plainly telling me there is a cat near us.”
At this moment there was a rustle among some leaves, and a beautiful tabby cat came into view close to where the birds were. Robinette got such a fright that he rose suddenly from the ground, and he seemed to go on rising, rising, until he was far away from his home in the rhododendron bush.
In his pleasure at finding himself going along so easily up in the air he quite forgot the cat, and, alas! he forgot his parents too. He forgot everything but himself.
“What a big place the world is!” thought he, as he sat on a branch of a large walnut-tree and looked round about him.