"Not at all. That's the way with singers the world over, until they are sharply taught where they belong. Few people are content with their own talents. My own family is the only modest and unassuming one that I know of. We are content to dig and eat and sit in the sun. We have never trained our voices or gone in for dancing. Very different from your family, young Mr. Squirrel, which is frivolous and noisy. But you must pardon that—it was a mere observation. As I was saying, the only way to decide the business and restore order was to hold a meeting of all the birds, with a few good judges of music on hand to decide the question once for all.
"The adder, being deaf, was the chairman. Deafness, they say, is the prime requirement in a critic, for it allows him time to think. And the buzzard, also, was there to award the prizes. A peculiar choice, you might say, but he has a horrid way of putting things and he wears a cut-away coat.
"So the day came. The woods and the orchards were full of birds, singing and calling and screaming and whistling. Everybody was too much excited to think of eating, and every bush held a crowd of contestants. It was orderly enough, however, when the contest began.
"The wood dove began the concert. Very soft and sweet. It always makes me think of my giddy youth and my first wife to hear the wood dove. She's really a little bit too sad.
"Then they came on, each one in turn. It was a fine cherry-tree where they sang, and it was so full of blossoms that you could hardly see the performers. Poor little Miss Wren was scared to death. She tried to sing, but all she could say was, Tie me up, tie me up, and she fell off the branch with fright. One redbird, and the tanager, and that whole gay family of buntings—what a brilliant, showy lot! But they were very clear and high and full of little scraps of tune in their singing. More suited to the hedgerow, however, than the concert room.
"The best, to my thinking, was the thrush. You can hear him any evening down there in the alder bushes. He's very retiring and elegant. They say he sings of India and the lotus flowers. It's something sad and far away that he just remembers. I'm not much of a hand at poetry myself, and I personally have a great fondness for the crows. Good, sharp, business men, the crows, and although they are not strictly musical, they appeal to me. You see, we have a great deal in common, the crows and myself, by way of looking after the young corn. We meet, as you might say, in a business way.
"Well, the contest was long and lively. The bluebird and rice-birds, and even the orioles performed in wonderful fashion; and at last, when it was all over, the prize was never given at all. For right out of the clear sky came the mocking-bird, who had kept himself out of the contest until the end, and after he lighted on a branch of that cherry-tree and began his song, there was simply nothing to be said. It dawned on the whole lot of them that they had sung their notes wrong! Yes, young Mr. Squirrel, fine and noisy as it all had been, not one of these birds had sung the tune his father had taught him! Just by trying to outsing each other all those years, their own sweet notes were injured. And only the mocking-bird could remember every lovely song as it should be done. Even the thrush had to admit as much. The adder crawled off in disgust, and the buzzard grew positively insulting in his remarks. He said he had been detained for nothing.
"'Listen, listen, listen,' said the mocking-bird, and straightway he sang like the nonpareil, and then you would have thought him the oriole. It was enough to break your heart, for it was just the lovely old songs that the birds used to sing.