at the south, and Evelina at the west!”

All day long Robert Robin did nothing except carry food for the baby robins, but the next day Mrs. Robin helped him, and both of them were busy, for the four little baby robins were very hungry. They never did seem to get enough to eat.

“The children have wonderful appetites!” said Mrs. Robin.

“They are simply ravenous!” said Robert Robin.

“What does ‘ravenous’ mean?” asked Mrs. Robin.

“Ravenous means as hungry as a wolf!” answered Robert Robin. “I wish that the cherries would hurry and get ripe!”

“Do wolves eat cherries?” asked Mrs. Robin.

“I do not know!” said Robert Robin, “but I do know that ripe red cherries are good for baby robins, and ever so much easier to find than bugs and worms!”

“Green cherries make them sick! We must be very careful not to feed our babies any green cherries!”

“I know where there is an early cherry tree!” said Robert Robin, “and I am going right over there now and see if any of the early cherries are ripe!”

So Mrs. Robin waited by their nest while Robert Robin went over to see about the early cherries.

The early cherry tree grew in Widow Blunt’s back yard. Widow Blunt’s father had planted it, and it was the very earliest cherry tree in all the neighborhood.

When Robert Robin came in sight of it he saw the bright red fruit shining among the green leaves. The early cherries were ripe, and Robert Robin was the first to find them.

In a few moments Robert Robin stood beside his own nest with a bright red cherry in his mouth.

“Be sure to pop the pits, children!” said Mrs. Robin, and after the little robin had swallowed the cherry, the cherry pit came popping from his mouth and rattled down to the ground.

Many times that day Robert Robin and Mrs. Robert Robin went back and forth between their nest and Widow Blunt’s early cherry tree, but in the afternoon, Widow Blunt was out in her garden when she saw a red-breasted robin picking her cherries.

“Oh! You cute robin red-breast!” she called. “You are after my cherries, but you will have to wait until I have picked all that I want for my own use, before you get any more!”

Widow Blunt went into her house, and brought out her stepladder. Then she went into her parlor and got a big stuffed owl off the mantel. The owl was one that Mister Blunt had shot, and a friend of his had stuffed its skin and put in great glass eyes that would scare almost anything. The owl looked just as if he were going to spring right at you.