أنت هنا
قراءة كتاب The Tale of Jolly Robin
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">86
THE TALE OF JOLLY ROBIN
Of course, there was a time, once, when Jolly Robin was just a nestling himself. With two brothers and one sister—all of them, like him, much spotted with black—he lived in a house in one of Farmer Green’s apple trees.
The house was made of grass and leaves, plastered on the inside with mud, and lined with softer, finer grass, which his mother had chosen with the greatest care.
But Jolly never paid much attention to 2 his first home. What interested him more than anything else was food. From dawn till dark, he was always cheeping for something to eat. And since the other children were just as hungry as he was, those four growing babies kept their parents busy finding food for them. It was then that Jolly Robin learned to like angleworms. And though he ate greedily of insects and bugs, as well as wild berries, he liked angleworms best.
Jolly and his sister and his brothers could always tell when their father or their mother brought home some dainty, because the moment the parent lighted upon the limb where the nest was built they could feel their home sink slightly, from the added weight upon the branch.
Then the youngsters would set up a loud squalling, with a great craning of necks and stretching of orange-colored mouths. 3
Sometimes, when the dainty was specially big, Mr. or Mrs. Robin would say, “Cuck! cuck!” That meant “Open wide!” But they seldom found it necessary to give that order.
Somehow, Jolly Robin managed to eat more than the rest of the nestlings. And so he grew faster than the others. He soon learned a few tricks, too. For instance, if Mrs. Robin happened to be sitting on the nest, to keep her family warm, when Mr. Robin returned with a lunch for the children, Jolly had a trick that he played on his mother, in case she didn’t move off the nest fast enough to suit him.
He would whisper to the rest of the children. And then they would jostle their fond parent, lifting her up above them, and sometimes almost upsetting her, so that she had hard work to keep from falling off the nest. 4
Mrs. Robin did not like that trick very well. But she knew that Jolly would not annoy her with it long. Indeed, he was only eleven days old when he left his birthplace and went out into the wide world.
You see, the young folk grew so fast that they soon more than filled the house. So there was nothing their parents could do but persuade them to leave home and learn to fly.
One day, therefore, Mr. Robin did not bring his children’s food to the edge of the nest and drop it into their mouths. Instead, he stood on the limb a little distance away from them and showed them a plump angleworm.
The sight of that dainty was more than Jolly Robin could resist. He scrambled boldly out of the nest; and tottering up to his father on his wobbling legs, he 5 snatched the tempting morsel out of his proud parent’s bill.
Jolly never went back to the nest after that. The next day Mrs. Robin coaxed the other children from home in the same fashion. And though it may seem a heartless act, it was really the best thing that could have happened to Jolly and his sister and his brothers.
You see, they had to learn to fly. And so long as they stayed in the nest they could never learn a difficult feat like flying.
After Jolly Robin had gulped down the fat angleworm with which his father had coaxed him to leave the nest, he clung desperately to the limb. With no food in sight he had plenty of time to look about him and to be alarmed.
The day was not gone before he had a great fright. He tumbled out of the apple tree and fell squawking and fluttering upon the ground.
Luckily, his mother happened to be at home. She went to Jolly at once and told him not to be afraid.
“Nothing will hurt you,” she said, “if 7 you’ll only keep still. But if you squall like that, the cat will find you.”
It may seem strange, but his mother’s words frightened Jolly all the more. They scared him so thoroughly that he stopped making a noise, anyhow. And that was how he learned never to talk when he was on the ground near a house where a cat might live.
“Now,” said Jolly’s mother, as soon as he was still, “I’ll teach you a new game. Just watch me!” And spreading her wings, she flapped them, and sprang into the air.
Soon Jolly was trying to imitate her. And it was not long before he found himself gliding a short distance, skimming along just off the ground.
But in spite of all his efforts, he couldn’t help falling again. Though his mother tried to show him how to fly into a 8 tree-top, Jolly Robin seemed unable to learn the trick.
At last Mr. Robin said to his wife:
“I’ll teach him the rest. You’ve made a good beginning. But he must learn more at once. There’s no telling when the cat may come into the orchard to hunt for field-mice. And you know what would happen then.”
His wife shuddered. But Mr. Robin told her not to worry.
“I’ll soon have this youngster so he can fly as well as anybody,” he declared.
So he went and hopped about on the ground with Jolly for a little while, showing him how to find worms beneath the grass carpet of the orchard.
And then, in a loud voice, Mr. Robin suddenly cried: