The man laid down his clippers, and tiptoed along behind the hedge until he came to a place where a little iron wheel stuck up out of the ground. The man took hold of the little iron wheel and turned it just as quickly as he could, and the water came rushing out of the old iron fountain, and the big cat jumped first one way and then another, and whichever way she sprang she spattered right into streams of cold water that squirted all over her.
“Pstt! Pstt!” she said as she jumped out of the basin, and ran across the nice green lawn, and hurried home.
When the big cat got home she shook herself and said: “That old iron fountain is no good! It is a poor place to hide! I am as wet as a mop! Who would ever have expected that old fountain to blow up like that? General Scamp is letting his place run down so fast that I do not think I will go over there any more! I will dry my fur, then I will go over to the dump and catch a rat!”
When Robert Robin saw the big cat get wet in the old iron fountain, he told the little robins never to go near that place. “That big cat got very wet, and a little bird, like you, might drown!” he said.
Then, as it was getting towards night, Robert Robin led his family over to the city park. He expected to get a room in the Bird House, but the rooms were all taken, so Robert Robin and his family were forced to sleep all night in a maple tree.
During the night a dense bank of fog rolled in from the lake, and the black smoke of a factory chimney drifted through the park. The lights of the city and the noise of the traffic kept Robert Robin’s family awake most of the night.
“I do not enjoy sleeping in a strange tree!” said Mrs. Robin, the next morning.
“The fog and smoke were very bad!” said Robert Robin, “and those bright lights made my eyes smart!”
Little Evelina had caught cold, Montgomery had hurt his toe, and the other youngster birds were tired and not a bit pleasant, so when Mrs. Robin said, “I would like to go back to our own basswood tree, and build us a nice new nest, in the place where the old one was, then I could lay four more eggs, and we would have plenty of time to raise another family this summer!” When Mrs. Robin said that, all the young robins cried at once: “I want to go home! I want to go home!” and all that Robert Robin said was, “I would like to go to some place where I can get a good night’s sleep!”
The whistles of the city were blowing, and the big clock in the Court House was just striking seven, when Robert Robin and his family flew along the shore of the great lake for a short distance, and then suddenly swerved up into the high air over the woods and fields, and at half-past four that afternoon, they could see Brigg’s Brambles, and their own woods, with their tall basswood tree standing in the corner of it.