CHAPTER IV
A NAUGHTY MOCKINGBIRD
Among the young robins I had given me was one that was found sitting helplessly under some trees.
“I think I will try my solitary Bob with this one,” I said, and I took it to the aviary and put it on the ground.
The baby robin that had been reserved and sulky with me, wildly flapped his tiny wings when he saw Bob, and ran after him screaming for food.
Bob stopped short, wheeled round, searching for worms, and diligently stuffed the little fellow, who followed him as closely as his shadow.
I was delighted with the success of my experiment, but received a shock a little later on going into the basement to find the wet, bedraggled body of my poor baby robin in the pigeon’s big bathtub. He must have fluttered in while following Bob, his foster parent, about, and the puzzled Bob did not know how to get him out.
As I picked up the body and held him in my hand, a workman who was busy about some repairs in the basement, said solemnly, “It’s drowned!” There was no doubt about it. I had lost my little bird, and now there was nothing but the burial.
Another little robin soon took its place. This one I promptly gave to Bob, and met with a surprise. The young one fluttered its little wings, ran after Bob with appealing cries to which a deaf ear was turned. Why would he not feed it?
“You selfish bird,” I said, and I fed the robin myself.
Bob said nothing, but looked wise, and in a short time my baby robin was in a dying condition, crying and fluttering his little wings to the last, as if he saw the loving mother bird approaching with her bill full of food.