Christmas stories

by Mary Jane Holmes

“It was Robin, of course, and to my great delight I found that I was actually in the very garden he had described to me, that my mistress was his mistress, and that his nest was up in one of the tall horse chestnuts, which grew at the entrance of the grounds. And there was another Mrs. Robin now, a pretty little bird, who arched her neck so gracefully and looked so shyly at me from her bright eyes when Robin brought and introduced her to me. They were very happy together—Mr. and Mrs. Robin—and I in part forgot my own sorrows and loneliness in watching them day by day as they flew in and out of the nice soft nest in the chestnut tree, and made wide circles in the air just as I used to do away down on the river.

“At last Robin came to me with a very important air, and told me there were four blue eggs in the nest, and Mrs. Robin was sitting on them to keep them warm, and he was going to hunt worms for her from the mound of earth just turned up in the garden. They were Mrs. Robin’s first eggs, and she scarcely left them at all until the shells were broken and I heard there were four young birds in the nest. Oh, how proud little Mrs. Robin was! What care she took of her babies—more care, indeed, than Robin, who was growing old and fat, and indisposed for work, and who sometimes called her nervous and fussy, and told her that nothing could harm her children as long as they staid up in that tall tree. Still Mrs. Robin was very watchful and vigilant, and looked askance at every boy who passed on the walk, and even at Harry and Grey and Gifford, little boys who came sometimes to play in the garden, and who could no more have climbed to the nest than they could have gone to the steeple of the church just showing above the trees in the distance.

“At last, when the birds were old enough to be taught to fly, an event occurred which threw Mrs. Robin into a wild state of excitement. I had several times heard my mistress and the cook talking together of some people who were coming to spend a portion of the summer, and I had caught the names of Florence and Johnnie, but who Florence and Johnnie were I did not know or particularly care, for it mattered little to me who came or went. I was never molested, and my daily wants were supplied with great regularity. And still I did have some little curiosity with regard to the expected guests, on whose account the whole household was, for a few days, in an unusual commotion. On the afternoon when they arrived my cage was hanging in a little archway at the rear of the grounds, and so I heard and saw nothing until Robin, who had been absent for a few hours, came home, and stopped for a moment on a shrub near me to rest and chat awhile, as he was in the habit of doing. In fact, I had sometimes thought that Mrs. Robin, whom, since the birth of the birds, he had called little Motherdy, while she in return had called him Fatherdy, was more than half jealous of me because of Robin’s sociability. At all events he never sat near me long before she joined him and made some excuse to get him away. So I was not surprised to see her flying toward us from the cherry-tree, where she had been pecking away at a half-ripe cherry. As she came near I saw at a glance that something was the matter, and so did Robin, and he called out in his cheery, teasing way:

“‘Well, little Motherdy, what’s up now, that your feathers seem so ruffled, and you so excited? Anything happened to the young ones, or what is the matter?’

“‘Matter!’ she repeated. ‘Matter enough. What do you think has come right into our midst to worry our birds to death?’

“‘Cats, maybe,’ he said; and she replied:

“‘Cats! No, something worse than that. Two children, boy and girl, and by the looks of the luggage they have come to stay, and there’s an end of all peace for us. Why, the boy has already spied me, and actually thought he could reach me, and I on the top of the Brockway house. You would far better have put our nest in the evergreens across the street, where I wanted it. But no, you must stay in that old place just because you used to live there with the other one, who I wish was here now. Such a time as I am going to have with those children! Afraid for my life and the babies every minute!’

“I had known before that Motherdy, though a nice little thing, had a temper, and that she was sometimes given to being jealous of the first Mrs. Robin, and that she had opposed the old nest in the chestnut tree, because Mrs. Robin 1st had lived there. But she was so pretty, and had such graceful ways, that Robin never lost his temper, no matter how unreasonable she might be, and now he only laughed good-humoredly and made light of her fears, saying his mistress would never allow any one to disturb the birds, and as for the evergreens across the street, where she had wanted him to build a new nest, she would have been no safer there, for was not Harry over there, and Grey, and were they not both larger than this Chicago boy who had so alarmed her?

“‘You are nervous, little Motherdy,’ he said. ‘You have boy on the brain. Hadn’t you better go home? Some boy may have stolen your babies, nest and all.’

“Motherdy was too angry to reply, and flew away rapidly, followed soon by Robin, who, I suppose, made his peace with her, for they were out together early the next morning, hunting for worms and grasshoppers, and talking lovingly in the language which birds understand. And still I could see that both were rather anxious for the appearance of the children, Florence and Johnnie, and so was I, for I had heard the sound of voices from the house—sweet, musical voices, such as children always have—and I thought I could tell which was Florence and which was Johnnie, for one I knew was two or three years older than the other.