“You mustn’t look for any nest in the bushes around here, because you won’t find it,” twittered Thrush, in a tone Old Man Red Fox would have been suspicious of. “Listen! I am going to give you a concert!” And he flew to the birch tree over their heads.
There followed a program of the most varied trills and whistles the fawns had ever heard; and though his voice was not so sweet toned as some of the tinier birds’, his throaty trills and liquid, low-pitched chirps and whistles were just as delightful as they could be.
There were bird calls all around them, “Pee-wees” and “Chip-chip-chips” and “Wee-wee-wee-wees” and all sorts of soft little calls and answers.
They none of them minded the fawns in the least, except those who had nests on the ground. They always watched nervously when the frisky fellows capered too near, with their sharp little hoofs, though they knew the fawns wouldn’t hurt an ant if they knew it.
Every now and again the singers would cease, when one of the soft patches of white cloud got in front of the sun; for instantly the air grew chilly, and a breeze started all the tree-tops to waving till the birds had to hang on hard.
Then the Lake would ruffle into tiny wave-lets and grow dark green like the woods along the shore-line. For before, the water had lain as still as a silver mirror, reflecting the pale blue of the warm sky.
In weather like this, it was good just to lie still and watch and listen, or drowse off with the sun warm on one’s fur and the spicy earth smells in one’s nostrils. The green world was so interesting.
When a passing cloud of a darker gray brought the big drops pattering about them for a few minutes, they merely scampered under an over-hanging boulder, where they huddled together on a drift of leaves, and watched it all.
Later, when the bull-frogs began their “Ke-dunk, ke-dunk,” down under the banks of Lone Lake, where the ducks were feeding their nestlings, and the sun began to send long red beams slanting through the tree-trunks, Fleet Foot led them down to a shallow cove for a taste of lily pads, and they waded in and tried a nibble of everything she tasted.
After that came a night under a drooping pine tree, whose lowest branch roofed over a boulder in the most inviting way, and the wind droned through the branches and blew the mosquitoes all away, and they lay snuggled warmly together on the fragrant needles, and watched the stars come out.