“The cat! The cat!” And he flew into an old tree near-by. 9

Jolly Robin had never seen Farmer Green’s cat. But he had heard that she was a dreadful, fierce creature. And when his father shouted her name Jolly was so startled that he forgot he didn’t quite know how to fly. Before he knew what he was doing, he followed his father right up into the old apple tree and perched himself on a low branch.

That was the way he learned to fly, for he never had the least trouble about it afterward. And as soon as he realized that he had actually flown from the ground to the bough he was so pleased that he began to laugh merrily.

As for the cat, she was not in the orchard at all. Indeed, Jolly’s father had not said that she was. You see, he had played a joke on his son.

Now, up to that time Jolly Robin had not been named. You must remember 10 that he was not two weeks old. And having three other children of the same age, his parents had not been able to think of names for all of them.

But this big youngster laughed so heartily that his father named him “Jolly,” on the spot. And “Jolly” he remained ever afterward.

After he learned to fly, Jolly Robin’s father took him into the woods to spend each night in a roost where there were many other young robins, whose fathers had likewise brought them there.

Jolly learned a great deal from being with so many new friends. It was not long before he could find plenty of food for himself, without help from anyone.

He discovered, too, that there was safety in numbers. For example, if Jasper Jay made too great a nuisance of himself by bullying a young robin, a mob of robins could easily put Jasper to flight. 12

“Always help other people!” That was a motto that all the youngsters had to learn. And another was this: “Follow your father’s lead!”

Later in the season, in October, when the robin cousins and uncles and aunts and sisters and brothers and all the rest of the relations made their long journey to their winter homes in the South, Jolly found that there was a good reason for such rules. If he hadn’t followed his father then he might have lost his way, because—since it was the first time he had ever been out of Pleasant Valley—he knew nothing whatever about travelling.

He looked forward with much interest to the journey, for as the days grew shorter he heard a great deal of talk about the trip among his elders. And while he was waiting for the day when they should leave he became acquainted with many 13 new and delicious morsels to eat. He roamed about picking wild grapes, mulberries and elderberries. And he did not scorn a large, green katydid when he chanced to find one.

There was always some new dainty to be sampled; though as the weather grew colder Jolly began to understand that in winter Pleasant Valley would not be so fine a place to live.

However, he managed to find food enough so that he continued to grow rapidly. The night after he found a mountain ash on a hillside, full of bright red berries, his father said that he seemed much taller than he had been that morning.

“You must have eaten a great many of those berries,” said Mr. Robin.

“Well, I notice one thing,” Jolly observed. “My waistcoat is fast losing its 14 black spots. And it’s redder than it was. The red berries certainly colored it in some way.”

Mr. Robin replied that he had never heard of such a thing happening. He looked curiously at his son’s waistcoat.

“It does seem to look different,” he said. “It’s brighter than it was.”

Really, that was only because Jolly was fast growing up. But neither he nor his father stopped to think of that. And since Jolly had learned that motto, “Follow your father’s lead,” he thought his waistcoat ought to be just as red as old Mr. Robin’s was.

So Jolly visited the mountain ash each day and fairly stuffed himself with the bright red fruit.

It did him no harm, anyhow. And he enjoyed eating it.

And the next spring, when Jolly Robin 15 returned to Pleasant Valley, after spending the winter in the South, there was not a redder waistcoat than his in all the neighborhood.

Jolly Robin had something on his mind. For several days he had been turning a certain matter over in his head. But in spite of all his thinking, he seemed unable to find any answer to the question that was troubling him. So at last he decided he would have to ask somebody to help him.

And that was why Jolly stopped Jimmy Rabbit near the garden one day.

“I want your advice,” he told Jimmy Rabbit.

“Certainly!” that young gentleman replied. And he sat himself down upon his wheelbarrow and looked very earnest. “If 17 it’s anything about gardening,” he said, “I should advise you to raise cabbages, by all means.”

But Jolly Robin said he wasn’t thinking of planting a garden.

“In fact,” he explained, “the trouble is, I don’t know what to do. I’d like to have some regular work, you know. And since you’ve had a good deal of experience, having run a tooth-pulling parlor, a barber-shop, and a shoe-store, I thought you might be able to tell me what would be a good business for me to take up.”

For a few minutes Jimmy Rabbit did not speak. But he nodded his head wisely.

“Let me see!” he said at last. “What’s the thing you do best?”

Jolly Robin replied at once that he thought he could fly better than he could do anything else. And he felt so happy, because he was sure Jimmy Rabbit was 18 going to help him, that he began to laugh gaily. And he couldn’t help singing a snatch of a new song he had heard that morning. And then he laughed again.

“You’re mistaken,” Jimmy Rabbit said to him. “You fly well enough, I dare say. But there are others who can beat you at flying.... No!” he declared. “What you can do better than anybody I know is to laugh. And if I were you I should make laughing my regular business.”

That idea struck Jolly Robin as being so funny that he laughed harder than ever. And Jimmy Rabbit nodded his head again, as if to say, “I’m right and I know it!”

At last Jolly Robin stopped laughing long enough to ask Jimmy to explain how anyone could make a business of laughing. “I don’t see how it could be done,” said Jolly Robin. 19

“Why—it’s simple enough!” Jimmy told him. “All you need do is to find somebody who will hire you to laugh for him. There are people, you know, who find it very difficult to laugh. I should think they’d be glad to pay somebody to do their laughing for them.”

“Name someone!” Jolly Robin urged him.

And Jimmy Rabbit did.

“There’s old Mr. Crow!” he said. “You know how solemn he is. It’s positively painful to hear him try to laugh at a joke. I’m sure he would be delighted with this idea. And if I were you I’d see him before somebody else does.”

Jolly Robin looked puzzled.

“Who would ever think of such a thing but you?” he asked.

“Nobody!” Jimmy Rabbit