Arthur Scott Bailey

“ Before Rusty Wren came to live in Farmer Green’s dooryard the family had been known to oversleep now and then. Working hard all day long as everybody did (except Johnnie Green, who played hard enough—goodness knows!) , they slept very soundly at night. And two or three times every summer they were sure to rise late, just by accident.
Though such a mishap always annoyed Farmer Green, it never troubled either the hired man or Johnnie in the least. On the contrary, they seemed to enjoy those occasions. But with Rusty Wren to rouse them at dawn all that was changed. ”

“ He was so cheerful and good-natured that Rusty Wren and his wife did not object [49] to Jolly’s visits—so long as he did not venture too near their house. They always scolded loudly when an outsider came too close to their home, for they had a big family of children, and they couldn’t help feeling that the youngsters were safer with no prying busybodies to meddle with them.
Of course, Jolly Robin never once thought of harming any of Rusty’s family. And as soon as he saw that Rusty—and especially his wife—wanted him to keep away from their side of the tree, he took care to respect their wishes. ”

“ It is easy to understand why Farmer Green and his family overslept, when one knows that Rusty Wren no longer sang his dawn song beneath Farmer Green’s window. And when Rusty saw that the whole household never stirred until long after sunrise, he was so pleased that he couldn’t help making a few remarks about the new bird in the farmhouse, which had annoyed him so by singing “Cuckoo! cuckoo!”
“This stranger is a very poor songster!” Rusty said to his wife. “All he [26] can sing is ‘Cuckoo! cuckoo!’ in that silly way of his. He has no trills and runs and ripples at all! ”

“ And he had not waited two days before Rusty Wren discovered the bright tin can that was to be his summer home.
As soon as she saw it, Rusty’s wife said that there must be kind people living in the farmhouse, or they never would have driven nails through a spick-and-span can just to make strangers happy. ”

“ And since he loved to be busy and was never so happy as when he had something important to do, he hopped and climbed and fluttered to his heart’s content, looking into a hundred different holes and cracks and crannies. ”

“ If you don’t set my boy free to-morrow morning at daybreak, I shall certainly make trouble for you.”
Mr. Chippy’s warning amazed Rusty Wren. But he couldn’t help laughing at the idea of anybody causing him any [90] trouble.
“I’m so deep in trouble now,” he told Mr. Chippy, “there’s nothing you can do to make matters any worse for me. I’ve six growing children to bring up; and now I have your son to take care of; and my wife thinks everything is my fault, because I wanted to hire a boy to help me catch insects. ”

“ But Rusty Wren said, “Nonsense! The doorway’s made of tin—not wood. You have grown—that’s the whole trouble! And you’ve got us into a pretty fix.”
“I begin to think that it was all planned this way by his father,” Mrs. Rusty told her husband, “so Mr. Chippy wouldn’t have to take care of his son. But I don’t intend to adopt a big, overgrown boy like him—not when I have six small children of my own!” ”

“ Feeding six growing youngsters had kept both their parents working every minute all day long, because the children were always clamoring for more food. And now they seemed half starved, for they had had nothing to eat all the time that Jasper Jay had kept Rusty and his wife hiding in their house. ”

“ When Johnnie Green fastened the tin can to the tree in the dooryard he couldn’t have picked out a better spot for it. Of course, he hoped that a pair of wrens would build their nest inside the syrup can. But what he never dreamed was that the cherry tree was exactly the sort of tree that wrens liked.
It was not that Rusty and his wife cared for cherries. But as soon as Mrs. Wren had said how much she liked her new house, she remarked that the old cherry tree was a fine place to hunt for bugs and insects.
“Yes!” Rusty agreed. “And there’s [48] an ant hill near the foot of the tree. ”

“ But the call was not repeated.
“Farmer Green is not satisfied with my [22] singing!” Rusty cried. And thereupon he flew into such a rage that when his wife came home, a few minutes later, she was actually frightened.
“What in the world is the matter?” she asked her husband anxiously.
“Matter?” cried Rusty Wren. “Here I’ve sung my best for Farmer Green all summer, and waked him at dawn every morning without fail! And what do you suppose he’s done? He has brought home a strange bird from the village, because he doesn’t care for my singing.” ”

“ Rusty couldn’t think of anything to worry about. And her husband frequently remarked that it was a lucky day for all of them when he decided to hire a boy.
Both Rusty and his wife had quite forgotten the strange feeling of that good [79] little lady’s that some sort of trouble was coming to them on account of taking an outsider into their house.
So the days passed happily for them. And all the while their six children were fast growing bigger. The proud parents often remarked that they had never before known youngsters to change so rapidly. ”

“ Rusty Wren said.
But his wife caught hold of his coat-tails and begged him to stay with her.
“No! no!” she cried. “You must not stir out of the house. I’d be terribly worried if you left me alone here with these six small children. And you might get hurt, besides.”
Meanwhile the racket on the roof continued, [55] with only a short pause between each outburst. The six Wren children began to cry—for they were hungry as well as frightened. And all the time Mrs. Rusty clung to her husband’s coat-tails and besought him not to leave her. ”

“ It seemed to take Rusty Wren’s wife a long time to recover from the fright that Jasper Jay had given her. He had amused himself by dropping cherries upon the roof of her house. But the trick had not amused the Wren family in the least.
Even after Johnnie Green had driven the blue-coated rascal away from the dooryard Mrs. Rusty Wren was all aflutter. She jumped at the slightest noise. And she was so nervous that Rusty soon saw that it was a great effort for her to go abroad for food for their hungry family.
“You must stay right here at home and [63] rest,” he urged her. ”

“ And though he still sang as merrily as ever, his wife noticed the change that had come over him.
Naturally, that made her worry. And since worrying was bad for her nerves, she began to grow worse instead of better.
“I don’t know what’s going to become of us,” she said at last. “As the children grow bigger they need more to eat. And I can see plainly that you’re never going to be able to provide enough for them.”
“Oh! they’ll soon be old enough to leave home and catch their own insects,” Rusty told her hopefully. ”

“ That doesn’t matter,” he remarked with a careless air. “We have a singing-party almost every night. I’d much rather go to your cousin’s.”
It is not strange that Rusty Wren should feel a little uncomfortable at the prospect of arriving at a party with a person who had received no invitation to it. But he could think of no way of ridding himself of Mr. Frog’s company. So the two started off together towards the home of Long Bill Wren. ”

“ Mr. Crow hesitated.
“Where’s Farmer Green?” he inquired.
“Oh! He’s working in the hayfield.”
“Where’s Johnnie Green?” Mr. Crow asked.
“Oh! He’s in the hayfield, too, riding on the hayrake,” Rusty Wren explained.
“I’ll come with you, then,” Mr. Crow croaked.
So they flew to the dooryard. And they hadn’t waited there long when the strange bird sang his “Cuckoo! cuckoo!”
“There!” said Rusty. “That’s his silly song!”
And to his surprise Mr. Crow haw-hawed right out.
“What’s the joke?” Rusty Wren wanted to know.
“That’s not a bird——” said old Mr. Crow—“or, at least, it’s not a [30] real bird. ”

“ It was not one of those man-made clocks, which go off with a deafening clatter and bring a startled body to his feet before he is really awake. No! Farmer Green had something much pleasanter [12] than that; and it was not in his bedroom, either.
His alarm clock was in his dooryard, for it was Rusty Wren himself who always warned him that day was breaking and that it was time to get up and go to work. ”

“ And he can’t even repeat his song ten times a minute, as I give mine. He has to wait at least half an hour before he cries ‘Cuckoo! cuckoo!’ again. And no one but a simpleton would ever attempt to awaken a hard-working farmer by such half-hearted singing.”
Mrs. Rusty quite agreed with her husband.
“Farmer Green will be sorry he brought home such a worthless bird,” she said.
[27]
VI MR. CROW TO THE RESCUE
As time went on, and the Green family overslept each morning, Rusty began to grow very weary of the monotonous “Cuckoo! cuckoo!” ”

“ Meanwhile, Long Bill hopped briskly outside his house, and joined them on the ground.
“My party!” he cried. “Why, I know of no party here! Somebody has made a mistake. I haven’t given a party for a year—just a year ago to-day.... I invited you at that time,” he told Rusty Wren, “but you didn’t come. And I never received any word from you about the matter.”
“That’s strange!” said Rusty. “This [118] is the first I ever heard of the affair.”
“I engaged Mr. Crow to take your invitation to Jolly Robin in the orchard and ask him to give it to you,” Long Bill informed his bewildered cousin. ”

“ Rusty’s wife agreed with him on that point. But she still insisted that she wanted to live near the farmhouse; and she said that she expected her husband to find a good spot for their nest, for she certainly wasn’t going to spend the summer in a hole in a fence-rail, or in an old apple tree, either. ”