“In three days more,” said she, “you will be ready to fly, and you look more like your father all the time. In three days more,” she said, “if nobody eats you up.”
You can imagine how anxious the young Swift was during those three days, and how small he tried to be when Silvertip was around. “Surely,” he thought, “the sun and moon were never before so slow in marking off the time.”
When at last he was ready for flight, Silvertip was under the snowball bush near by. The young Swift sprang into the air. “Good-by, my Cat friend,” said he. “You look hungry, but you have lost your best chance at me. You should have been waiting at the grate for me. You might have known that such a foolish young Swift as I would tumble down sooner or later. All that saves some people is not having their foolishness found out!”
THE VERY RUDE YOUNG ROBINS
WHY this pair of Robins chose to build so near the Sparrows, nobody knows. It was not at all like Robins to do so, for they are quite careful how they bring up their children. One would expect them to think how likely the little Robins would be to grow up rude and quarrelsome.
However, there their nest was, not the length of a beanpole from those of two pairs of Sparrows. When the nestlings were hatched, they listened all day to what the Sparrows were saying and looked at what they were doing. They heard and saw many things which Mr. and Mrs. Robin did not like. But there was no helping it then, and all that their parents could do was to try to bring them up to be good little birds, and do as they had been told, and not as they had seen naughty children do.
It did make a difference in the behavior of the children, however, and after they left the nest this showed very plainly. When they were old enough to go outside the yard in which they had been hatched, they went to the place next door. There were many fowls on this place, and several Hens in coops with young Chickens around them. The father and mother left the young Robins in safe places while they went to hunt Worms in the newly hoed garden. Two children, a brother and a sister, were half hidden under the drooping branches of a large gooseberry bush.