To be sure, Johnnie Green—sitting up and rubbing his eyes sleepily—sometimes wished that Rusty would skip his dawn song once in a while. And he told his father at breakfast one day that since he was not a bird, he saw no reason why he should get up with the sun.
“You needn’t,” said Farmer Green. “But you know the old saying about ‘early to bed and early to rise,’ don’t you?”
Johnnie remembered that such habits were supposed to make one “healthy, wealthy and wise.” And since he hated to take medicine, and was trying to save enough money to buy him a gun, and disliked to be kept in after school for not knowing his lessons, he decided that perhaps it was just as well, after all, to follow Rusty Wren’s example.
Now, Farmer Green spoke so often and so pleasantly of Rusty Wren, saying that nobody could want a better little alarm clock than he, that Rusty began to take a great deal of pride in his morning task of awakening the household. It could hardly be called a task, however, because Rusty thoroughly enjoyed singing, though when he sang—as when he did anything else—he put every ounce of his strength into the effort. With his head lifted as high as his short neck would permit, and his tail (which usually stuck pertly upwards) drooping downward, as if he had for the moment forgotten it, he poured forth his music with such fervor that his small body actually trembled.
You see, Rusty Wren never did things by halves. When he did anything he was never satisfied with less than his best.
And that was another reason why Farmer Green liked him.