“This is going to be a fine day for our trip!” said Mrs. Robin.
“It couldn’t be better!” said Robert Robin. “There is just enough breeze to help in our flying; we should reach the great bay before night!”
The youngster robins were very much interested in seeing the new country. The valley continued to widen beneath them, villages and cities appeared, and great locomotives, puffing clouds of smoke, pulled long trains, and pierced the air with screaming whistles; but what interested the youngster robins still more were the other birds. Far above, and as far as could be seen on either side, the air seemed alive with them. There were crows, and thrushes, and flickers, and birds of many other kinds. Large birds, small birds, big birds, and little birds. Black and brown and gray and blue and yellow and red, and birds of all colors in between.
Flying so high that they could not be seen from the earth, it looked to the youngster robins as if all the birds in the world were going south for the winter. Robins, robins, everywhere! Hundreds of them flying in little family groups or mingled together in great flocks. Robert Robin kept saying, “Kirk! Kirk!” so that none of the children would get lost.
“Keep close to your father, children!” said Mrs. Robin. “If you should ever get lost in this crowd, we could no more find you again than we could find Jim Crow on a dark night!”
A flock of wild geese called from overhead, and frightened little Sheldon very much. They were such big birds; flying close together, their powerful wings driving their heavy bodies swiftly through the air. Their hoarse-voiced leader honked his loud calls as he led the line, which, straight and true as a file of drilled soldiers, sweeping in perfect formation a half mile on either side, was so different from anything that little Sheldon had ever seen that the little robin screamed, “Help! Help! Help! There comes a row of fat hawks!”
“Those are wild geese and they will not hurt you, child!” said Robert Robin.
“What makes them fly so close together?” asked little Sheldon.
“They came from where the fog banks roll over the ice of the north!” said Robert Robin, “and they have learned to fly closely together so that they will not get lost from each other in the fogs.”
The swift-winged geese were traveling much faster than the robins, and soon they were far ahead of Robert Robin and his family.