Chapter 5 ROBERT ROBIN SINGS HIS CHERRY SONG

Robert Robin was very happy. The cherries were ripe, and from the top of his tall basswood tree he could see dozens of cherry trees laden with the ripe, red fruit.

The little robins were very fond of cherries, and they never forgot to pop the pits, so that under Robert Robin's basswood tree there were soon great quantities of cherry pits.

One day the farmer and his hired man were coming through the woods, and they saw the cherry pits scattered around under the big basswood.

"Look at those cherry pits!" said the hired man.

"Those are not cherry pits, they are basswood bobs!" said the farmer.

"No! They are cherry pits!" said the hired man.

"Ha! Ha!" laughed the farmer. "Cherries do not grow on basswood trees!"

"I guess that I know a cherry pit when I see one!" said the hired man. "And if those are not cherry pits, I'll fry my mittens and eat 'em for supper!"

"The trouble with you, Hank, is that you are never willing to give up when you are wrong!" said the farmer. "How could so many cherry pits be under a basswood tree?"

Just then, one of the baby robins "popped" a pit, and the little cherry stone rattled against the branches of the basswood and fell to the ground near the hired man's feet.

The farmer picked it up and said: "Now, look here, Hank! There is no use of your standing there and telling me that that is a cherry pit, when both of us saw it drop off that basswood! Cherry pits don't drop off basswood trees, and for you to try to tell me that I don't know the difference between a cherry tree and a basswood tree is going just a little bit too far!"

"Maybe you're right!" said the hired man.

"There ain't no 'maybe' about it!" said the farmer. "I am most generally right when it comes to understanding nature!"

"All except when you pulled up that poison ivy, barehanded!" said the hired man, and both of them laughed, and the farmer said:

"Those basswood bobs did look so much like cherry pits, that they would have fooled anybody but an expert!"

And the hired man said: "They looked so much like cherry pits that the next time I am over this way, I am going to get some of them, and plant 'em in a box and raise me a cherry orchard!"

After the farmer and his hired man had gone, Mister Gabriel Chipmunk came out from under his old home stump. Mister Chipmunk was worried. He did not know what he was going to have to eat next winter.

So he sat on top of his old home stump and tried to think where he could find something to put in his granary bins.

Jeremiah Yellowbird sat in a bush near by, and when he saw Mister Chipmunk keeping so still, he said to him:

"What makes you so quiet to-day, Mister Chipmunk?"

"I am worried about what I will have to eat next winter, Mister Yellowbird! There are no beechnuts, this year, the wild-pea crop is a failure, the farmer has no fields of grain near my woods, and I have not seen a groundnut for six seasons!"

"Can't you find something to take the place of those things?" asked Mister Yellowbird.

"If the country was what it used to be, I would not worry a bit. But every year it gets worse and worse! Why, last winter, Mrs. Chipmunk and I had a miserable time living through the winter on wild buckwheat! My grandfather would have starved rather than eat wild buckwheat! And he would have starved, all right, if he had boarded at our house last winter, for wild buckwheat was all that we had! Imagine me, the monarch of all the woods, living on wild buckwheat!"

"Are you the monarch of the woods, Mister Chipmunk?" asked Jeremiah Yellowbird.

"I would like to know who has a better right to be called the 'monarch of the woods,'" said Gabriel Chipmunk. "When I sit on my old home stump and say 'Chip! Chip! Chip!' everyone knows that I am taking care of the woods, and if I did not keep a sharp lookout when men, and dogs, and cats come around, there would be many lives lost! A monarch is supposed to take care of his realm, and then I have plenty of time to be monarch, and I like the work, so that makes me the 'monarch of the woods.'"

Something fell from the big basswood tree. It was a cherry pit which one of the baby robins had "popped."

"Was that a nut which fell from the big basswood?" asked Gabriel Chipmunk. But Jeremiah Yellowbird did not know, so Mister Chipmunk hurried over to see, and when Gabriel Chipmunk saw all the nice cherry pits scattered on the ground under the big basswood, he was very much pleased, for Gabriel Chipmunk and all his folks liked cherry pits.

Mister Chipmunk filled his two big pockets with the nice cherry pits, and ran for home as fast as his little legs would carry him.

Gabriel Chipmunk's pockets were in his cheeks, and when he had both pockets full of cherry pits, his head looked larger than all the rest of him. Billy Rabbit saw him running through the woods. "Who on earth is that?" said Billy Rabbit to himself. "That big head is running around without anybody! Help! Help!" and Billy Rabbit ran home and told Mrs. Rabbit that he had just seen a terrible head running through the woods.

When Gabriel Chipmunk got home he dumped his two pocketsful of nice cherry pits into his granary bins, and called Mrs. Chipmunk to come and help him, and both of them worked as fast as they could and in a very short time all the nice cherry pits from under Robert Robin's big basswood tree were safe and snug in Mister Gabriel Chipmunk's granary under his old home stump.

Both of them were so tired that they went to bed and slept until the next morning.

Towards night Mister Robert Robin perched on the top of his big basswood and sang his "Cherry Song," and while he was singing he heard some one coming through the woods. It was the farmer's hired man. He was going to get some of the cherry pits to plant in a box.

He scuffed his feet among the leaves, and looked, and looked, but he could not find even just one cherry pit.

"Where did all those cherry pits go?" he asked himself. "There was forty-'leven hundred of 'em here this forenoon, and now they are as scarce as hen's teeth! Some bird must have picked up every last one of them! I wouldn't have cared, only I was so sure about their bein' cherry pits, and the farmer hates to get beat in an argument-but now I'll never hear the last of fryin' them mittens."

The hired man climbed over the fence and stood still. He was listening to Robert Robin's cherry song.

"Cherry sweeter!

Cherry sweeter!

Cherry sweet!

Cherry sweet!

Call Peter-

Call Peter!

Call Pete,

Call Pete!

Cherry sweet!

Cherry sweeter!

Cherry sweet!"

"That robin is a fine singer, and he is singing about cherries all right!" said the hired man, "and if I knew as much as he does about what became of those cherry pits, I could go right to 'em, this minute!"

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