Tardy’s illness made him very intelligent and very dependent on me, but the time came when I thought he ought to feed himself.
I can always tell by the length of a young robin’s tail when he is old enough to look after his own food supply, but Tardy’s tail grew until it was almost as long as an old bird’s, yet he would not eat a morsel himself. He would fly at me on the rare occasions when he wanted food, would scream, peck at me, and go to his dish of worms.
I would take a spoon, lift a worm, and say, “There it is, pick it up for yourself.”
He would put his head on one side, and stare at it, knowing quite well what I meant, but would not touch it.
Then I would relent and hand it to him, and if it was neither too long nor too short, nor too fat nor too lean, he would take it.
He was, as indeed most robins are, a very extravagant bird, and would eat some worms and throw the rest about.
Sometimes I had hard work to find boys to dig worms for me, but no matter how busy or how tired I was, the supply must be kept up, for while he was young he liked nothing else.
He was a very nervous bird, and I never caught him sleeping, no matter how quietly I stole into the room. This was unnatural. A young bird should not do much else but sleep and eat. To my great joy, the cough, after a time, began to leave him, and he condescended occasionally to feed himself.
When I found I was obliged to leave home I did considerable worrying about my sick robin. However, a kind maid that I had had on my farm promised to take the best of care of him, and after laying in a stock of worms, and engaging a boy to bring more, I came away.
This maid writes me constantly about all my birds. Of Tardy she remarks, “The Robin in the Chage is a verry dirty Bird. I can’t keep him clean, and if I give him a paper in his Chage he will tear it up. He eats Lamb now and Ant eggs. The Feathers are growing on his Head.”