“No,” said the sister. “Is there any on mine?”
They did not feel at all sure that their mother would have let them eat so much mush if she had been asked. They wondered if it would make them sick. They began to think about the stomach-ache, and felt sure that they had one—that is to say, two—one apiece, you know.
Over in the garden, Mrs. Robin said to her husband, “Do you know what those children have done? It was a very ill-bred, Sparrow-like trick. They scared the little Chickens away, and ate all they could of their mush. I am dreadfully ashamed of them, but I shall pretend I did not see it.”
“Make them eat plenty of Worms,” suggested Mr. Robin.
“Just what I am going to do,” answered his wife. “It won’t really hurt them to overeat for once in their lives, and it will punish them very well.”
That was why Mr. and Mrs. Robin worked so especially hard all morning, and made so many trips in under the gooseberry bush. The two young Robins who were there kept insisting that they didn’t need any more, and that they really couldn’t eat another Worm. After they said this, Mrs. Robin always looked sharply at them and asked, “What have you children been doing? Young birds should always want all the Worms their parents can bring them.”
The little Robins were not brave enough to tell what they had done. You know it often takes more courage to confess a fault than it does to scare people. So whenever their mother said this they agreed to eat one more Worm apiece, and choked and gulped it down. It was a dreadful morning for them.
Inside the Chicken-coop the old Hen was trying to settle down again, and the Chickens were talking it over.
“Wasn’t it dreadful?” asked one. “I didn’t know that Robins were so fierce.”
“Mother said that we shouldn’t be afraid of them,” cried another, “but I guess she’d be afraid her own self if she wasn’t in that coop. She’d be ’fraider if she was little, too.”