“I’ll soon have this youngster so he can fly as well as anybody,” he declared.
So he went and hopped about on the ground with Jolly for a little while, showing him how to find worms beneath the grass carpet of the orchard.
And then, in a loud voice, Mr. Robin suddenly cried:
“The cat! The cat!” And he flew into an old tree near-by. 9
Jolly Robin had never seen Farmer Green’s cat. But he had heard that she was a dreadful, fierce creature. And when his father shouted her name Jolly was so startled that he forgot he didn’t quite know how to fly. Before he knew what he was doing, he followed his father right up into the old apple tree and perched himself on a low branch.
That was the way he learned to fly, for he never had the least trouble about it afterward. And as soon as he realized that he had actually flown from the ground to the bough he was so pleased that he began to laugh merrily.
As for the cat, she was not in the orchard at all. Indeed, Jolly’s father had not said that she was. You see, he had played a joke on his son.
Now, up to that time Jolly Robin had not been named. You must remember 10 that he was not two weeks old. And having three other children of the same age, his parents had not been able to think of names for all of them.
But this big youngster laughed so heartily that his father named him “Jolly,” on the spot. And “Jolly” he remained ever afterward.