THE YELLOW-BIRD.
At daybreak the next morning yellow-bird came with the indigo-bird and thrush, and awakened Minnie with their charming songs. Sunrise, you know, is the time birds always choose for serenades; and I am not sure they are wrong--everything is so fresh, and still, and dewy, then.
She could hardly wait till the music was over before shaking away the moss in which she had slept, and going to bid her friends good-morning. Skipping fearlessly along the boughs,--for she had not forgotten squirrel's lessons,--just as the birds were preparing to fly away, Minnie surprised them with a sight of her merry face.
They did not chat long, for Minnie could see that her friends were impatient for their morning sail up in the fresh blue air. So she begged them to fly away, while she would go to the squirrel-nest and find if breakfast was ready.
She met squirrel, who, though much fatigued, and sometimes obliged to put his tail before his mouth in order to hide his gapes, was as civil as ever, and bade her a pleasant good-morning.
His wife did not happen to be in so amiable a mood. Not only was she tired from all the work and anxiety of the day before, but Minnie's sweeping and dusting, she said, had put everything out of order in her nest. Besides this, the children had taken cold from staying out of doors so long, and the light of the sun had given them weak eyes.
Minnie was troubled, and offered her help in making things go right again.
"No," Mrs. Squirrel replied, "I have had enough of such help, and now you can best assist me by keeping out of the way."
This was very rude, and brought tears into Minnie's eyes. It was bad enough, she thought, to be so far from home, but to be treated unkindly, and after she had worked so hard in hopes to please the squirrel, this was more than she could bear.
Running so far from the nest that she could not hear the angry voice within, Minnie seated herself on the bough, and, all alone there, thought of her pleasant home, and the mother who was so ready to praise her when she did right, and just as ready to forgive her when she did wrong. She seemed to see Franky looking through the fence, waiting, and wondering if she would never come. Then she saw Allie open her large eyes, and, peeping between the bars of her crib, look all about the room, and stretch her little hands forth for Minnie, and no Minnie there!