Excerpt
SOMEBODY IS EXPECTED
On May Day the feathered folk in Pleasant Valley began to stop, look and listen. They were expecting somebody.
"Have you seen him?" Rusty Wren asked Jolly Robin.
Jolly Robin said that he hadn't; but he added that he was on the lookout.
"Have you heard his song?" little Mr. Chippy inquired eagerly of Mr. Blackbird.
"No!" that dusky rascal replied. "Not yet! Maybe he isn't coming here this summer." Mr. Blackbird liked to tease little Mr. Chippy. And generally when he tried to, he succeeded.
"Oh! Don't say that!" Mr. Chippy exclaimed. "If I couldn't hear his gay voice I shouldn't care to spend a summer here myself."
Over the meadow, beyond the stone wall where Mr. Chippy made his home in a wild grapevine, Mr. Meadowlark flew to the swampy place where the rushes grew, just to find a Red-winged Blackbird that he knew, in order to learn whether he had seen or heard the friend everybody was watching for.
Perched upon a swaying last year's cattail, Mr. Red-winged Blackbird shook his head in reply. And he said that no doubt it would be a week before the looked-for arrival. "The season's a bit backward," Mr. Red-winged Blackbird remarked. "So I don't expect to set eyes on him to-day—though I have known him to get here as early as May Day."
Mr. Meadowlark confessed that he was disappointed.
"It would be a much gayer May Day," he said, "if his rollicking song rang over the meadow."
"What's the matter with your own singing?" Mr. Red-winged Blackbird asked him—meaning that in his opinion Mr. Meadowlark had no reason to be ashamed of his own voice.
"My song is not like his," Mr. Meadowlark answered. And he sighed as he spoke. "To be sure, some people are kind enough to say that my singing is unusually sweet. But you know yourself that there isn't a songster anywhere that can carol so joyfully as Bobby Bobolink."
Mr. Red-winged Blackbird did not dispute that statement. How could he, when the birds were all waiting so eagerly to hear Bobby Bobolink's voice?
"He has a way"—Mr. Meadowlark went on—"a way of making almost any summer's day a gay holiday. He is just bubbling over with happiness; and he can't seem to get his notes out fast enough."
"Yes!" Mr. Red-winged Blackbird chimed in. "He's a cheerful, happy-go-lucky chap. And he wears gay clothes, too."
"What's the matter with your own clothes?" Mr. Meadowlark inquired—meaning that in his opinion Mr. Red-winged Blackbird's black suit, with the shoulders scarlet and buff, was about as striking as anybody could want.
Mr. Red-winged Blackbird was pleased. Anybody could see that. He bowed and spread his wings and tail, and uttered his well-known call, "Conk-err-ee!" before he made any reply.
"People often compliment me on my taste in colors," he said at last. "And for year-round wear I do think my suit is about as good as anybody could ask for. But you know yourself that during the first half of the summer Bobby Bobolink makes a cheerful sight, when his black and white and buff back flashes above the meadow."
And Mr....