Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin

by Reuben Bertram Oldfield

So Mrs. Robin called to the children to come and hear Robert Robin tell the story of the Great White Bear and the Little Gray Mouse.

When the children had all gathered in the big basswood tree Robert Robin said, “Come with me!” and led the way to the other side of the woods, near the big stone under which Gerald Fox had his new home, and not far from the old stump fence. Here were many sumach bushes with their fernlike leaves and bright red bobs.

Robert Robin perched on a sumach limb, and straightened his feathers, then he sat up very much as if he were about to sing, and said:

“I have brought you to this side of the woods to tell you the story of the Great White Bear, and the Little Gray Mouse, because it was in this very spot that my father told me the same story, and it was in this same place that his father told the story to him, and no one knows how many, many years the family has gathered here by the big stone, to listen to this same story of the Great White Bear and the Little Gray Mouse. Sheldon! Will you please turn around and look this way?”

“All of you children should pay the closest attention to this story. You should not miss a single word of it, for it will be your duty to tell it to your children, just as I am telling it to you, for this is the story of Winter, and the story of why all robins fly southward every Fall, and why they return to the north in the Spring!”

Then Robert Robin told them the story of the Great White Bear, and the Little Gray Mouse.

Robert Robin’s Story

It was many, many seasons ago, before there was any north or south, and when there was only an east and a west, that there lived in the deep, dark woods of the north a King Robin. This King Robin and his mate and their four baby robins were all the robins that there were to be found in all the deep, dark woods.

Every morning when the gray light in the east glowed through the woods, King Robin sang a song, and every evening when the sun was about to sink behind the hills of the west, King Robin sang another song.

King Robin’s breast was covered with the softest and whitest down, but one day Mrs. Robin noticed that the tiny tips of the feathers were stained with red.