The soup course did not interest the creatures of the second table. Not a bird peeped or stirred, except to glare at a big white rabbit who came loping easily down the hill from the wood, and went noiselessly under the veranda.
"Old Muffy," whispered Biddy hoarsely; "he has a bottomless appetite. We hate to see him come—there are the robins. They're late too."
Four plump fat birds had just settled themselves over us with much shaking of wings and flirting of tails, though they did not speak.
I looked back at the table. Everybody had finished their soup and to my surprise the eldest girl, who had heavy black hair and a straight nose like her mother's, got up and piling all the empty soup plates on a tea-waggon rolled them along the veranda toward the kitchen.
On the way Bingi crossed her with a big roast of cold lamb on a platter.
Now there was a faint murmuring sound about me, and one of the boys called out, "Wait, robin babies, your turn will quickly come."
"That boy," said Biddy, who had asked permission to fly up to my back in order to get a better view of the table, "that nice boy makes a specialty of robins, and often brings them up by hand when the parents are killed. This is not a very good worm country as the soil is stony, so he buys worms from his sister's pit and makes worm hash."
"Worm hash," I repeated; "I never heard of such a thing."
"He never loses a young robin from crop trouble," said Biddy, "though they sometimes bathe themselves to death, being great water-lovers. He makes his hash of worms, bread, oatmeal and a few drops of milk. If he can't get worms he takes raw meat, but when his robins are grown they eat almost anything. Hush! don't cackle nor cluck. Here comes something for me."
"I'm not likely to do either," I said, then I eyed the black-haired girl who, before taking her seat at the table, had made a detour and with her left hand tossed Biddy a morsel of something.