Twice they started out and came back because their parents were looking. At last they made a dash and were by the board.
“Stand aside!” said the brother, talking as nearly like a Sparrow as he could. “Let us have some of this!”
“Who are you?” asked the Chickens, while the old Hen cluck-cluck-clucked and strutted to and fro in the coop. Every little while she stuck her head out as far as she could reach, and her neck feathers spread around in a funny, fat way against the slats of her coop.
“Go away!” she scolded. “Go right away! That is not your mush! You are not my Chickens! Go right home to your mother! Cr-r-r-r-r!” She said this last, you know, because she was getting so angry that she could say nothing else.
The fowls behind the netting of the poultry-yard all came to see what was going on, and chattered about it in their cackling way. “Send them off!” they cried. “Send them off! The idea of their trying to take food from the Chickens!” The Cocks looked particularly big and fierce. Still, there is not much fun in looking big and fierce behind a wire netting, when the people whom you want to scare are in front of it.
The young Robins were dreadfully frightened, but having feathers all over their face, it did not really show. Neither one was willing to be the first to start away, and they didn’t like to speak about it to each other for fear of being overheard. You know, if you can keep other people from finding out that you are scared, you may end by scaring them, and that was exactly what the Robins meant to do.
“Get out of our way!” said they. “Don’t brush against us so again! If you were not young, we wouldn’t have stood it this time. When you have feathers you may know better.”
Then the little Chickens were very badly scared indeed. They backed away as quickly as they could, and crawled in beside their mother. She told them to go back; that the Robins couldn’t hurt them, and that she was ashamed to have them act so Chicken-hearted.
“Let us get under your wings!” they said. “Please let us get under your wings!” And they followed, peeping, after her, as she marched to and fro in the narrow coop. Sometimes they got so near her feet that she almost knocked them over, and at last they quite gave up trying to cuddle down under her, and got together in little groups in the back part of the coop.
“Had enough?” asked the brother at last.