I cannot tell you how much I would like to see Jack and Dennis, but since I have found so many lovely friends in our new home, I don’t miss them as much as I did at first.
XXI
OUR WINGED FRIENDS
We soon discovered that cats and dogs were not our only new neighbors on Maple Road, for one morning early we noticed a pair of robins flitting around the upper piazza. It was plain that they had come to stay for a while at least, for they were building a nest among the vines, and they had it nearly completed. The nest was about half-way between the two posts. If it had only been at the post, we cats could have seen what was inside of it.
Two little red-breasted robins were flying back and forth, fetching all sorts of things in their beaks; straw and strings and moss and grass, which they twined around in the most curious fashion. One would step inside and pat it down with his breast, while the other went after more stuff. At one time one of them brought a black rag, which they both looked at, and chattered over a great deal, but evidently concluded not to use for they dropped it on the ground. Then, in her endeavor to help the robins mistress carried out a loose wad of cut worsted and placed it near the nest, but they did not make use of that either. Evidently they knew what they needed better than anybody else, in the building of their little home.
A day or two after the nest was finished, Guy stepped on a chair and looked inside, and found one little blue egg in it. After this mistress and Guy were very careful not to go on the piazza while the robins were in the nest, for fear they would be frightened, and would desert their eggs.
About three days later Guy looked again into the nest, and saw two eggs in it; and a week later when he looked again, there were four.
After the four eggs were laid, one of the robins stayed on the nest nearly all the time, the other one coming many times during the day, always bringing his mate something to eat. Mistress named them Robert and Rena.
We cats wanted to go out on the piazza the worst way during those days, but the door was always shut.
Sometimes when both robins were away, mistress or Guy would go on the piazza and scatter bread crumbs, but the naughty little sparrows would come and take them away from the robins.
It was very hard for me to be a good cat in those days, especially when mistress would be standing inside the screen door, and Robert on the flower box answering her call. She would say “Pretty Robbie” and he would say, “Take care”—I suppose he meant by that she should take care not to let any harm come to his little mate. But just as soon as mistress opened the door, he would fly on the neighboring roof and scold very hard till she shut the door again.