“Oh, you are entirely welcome, Mister Robin!” said Jim Crow. “If I had only been here a moment before, I would have picked a few feathers out of that bad Percy Hawk’s back to pay him for always trying to catch my baby crows!”
Then Jim Crow went over where the farmer was plowing, and Jeremiah Yellowbird went home, and David Songsparrow caught a bug for his breakfast, and Mister Gabriel Chipmunk came out and sat on his stump and said “Chip! Chip!” as loudly as he could say it, and the squirrels began chattering, and Major Partridge played a tune on his drum, and Mister Robert Robin mounted the very highest twig of his big basswood tree and sang a song for Mrs. Robin:
“Cheer up! Cheer up!
Cheer up! Cheer, up!
Be cheery!
Be cheery!
Cheer up! Cheer up!”
CHAPTER II
MISTER ROBERT ROBIN SEES THE FARMER’S NEW MALTESE CAT
One fine afternoon Mister Robert Robin was down under the pasture-field brush trying to find some brown bugs. He had caught one, but two more got away from him, so he was beginning to feel discouraged, when he happened to look up and see Mrs. Henrietta Partridge sitting on her nest under a beechwood bush.
Up to that time Mister Robert Robin had not known that Mrs. Partridge had a nest, although he had suspected it.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Partridge!” said Robert Robin, as he made a very polite bow. “This is wonderful weather we are having!”