He saw Chewee the Chickadee leading a regiment of gorgeous black and white and blue and yellow and orange and green warblers in and out through the dark green leaves of the potato plants, urging them to “Pick! Peck! Pick all you see-ee-ee!” It was eggs Chewee was hunting. Every once in a while a whole cloud of birds would go winging off to feed in the woods and the grain-fields, and another cloud would come in and settle down to eating the potato-bug army again.
“Those good birds!” Stripes squealed joyfully, “I’ll never eat another egg!”
He was so grateful he just had to tell the first bird he met. That was Chaik the Bluejay, who was perched on a wild-apple tree in the fencerow. “Those nice, good birds,” he said. “I’m going right over to thank them.”
“Don’t you do it,” warned Chaik. “Don’t you say a word till they’re all finished, or they’ll fly away and never come back at all. They aren’t doing this for you; they’re doing it for Bob White Quail. If they thought for a minute it was because Bob White wanted you to stay here they’d say he was crazy.”
“I guess you’re right,” Stripes agreed sadly. “The meadowlarks flew away yesterday the very first minute they saw me. All the same I just wish they knew I hadn’t touched an egg since I came here—’cepting only Bob White’s and I paid up for those. And I never will again. What’s more, I won’t let any one else if I know anything about it. If they’d only let me bring my family to help I think we could even keep Slyfoot the Mink away.”
“Don’t mention it,” exclaimed Chaik. “I know birds. You can’t reason with them. They wouldn’t think of it. They wouldn’t even hear you.”
They’d been moving along as they talked, getting closer and closer to where the birds were busiest and noisiest.
“I can hear them all right enough,” Stripes had to shout. “Did you ever listen to such a racket? That little brown one is the loudest of all.”
“She’s Jenny Wren,” Chaik called back—you couldn’t talk low and hear even yourself. Besides, he thought no one was looking at anything but the fighting. He didn’t see the slim brown mate of Coquillicot the Thrasher slip out of the grass beside them. “Jenny left Johnny to watch her eggs while she got a drink—hours ago,” he went on. “She just loves to boss things. But poor Johnny thinks the hawk has got her.”
“It’s a wonder the hawk hasn’t caught someone, isn’t it?” Stripes said.