Bobolink

“ Meadowlark was a great admirer of Bobby Bobolink. Much as he liked to sing himself, he often remained silent when Bobby's joyous music tinkled over the grass-tops in Farmer Green's meadow. And as Mr. Meadowlark was listening to one of Bobby's best songs one day an idea popped suddenly into his head. He liked this notion so well that he flew straight across the meadow to a thicket on the edge of the woods. And there in the undergrowth he found Buddy Brown Thrasher, who was exactly the person he was looking for. ”

“ Sometimes he is in pursuit of his mate; always in full song, as if he would win her by his melody; and always with the same appearance of intoxication and delight. Of all the birds of our groves and meadows, the bobolink was the envy of my boyhood. He crossed my path in the sweetest weather, and the sweetest season of the year, when all nature called to the fields, and the rural feeling throbbed in every bosom ”

“ Such is the story of the bobolink; once spiritual, musical, admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favorite bird of spring; finally, a gross little sensualist, who expiates his sensuality in the larder. His story contains a moral worthy the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the early part of his career, but to eschew all tendency to that gross and dissipated indulgence which brought this mistaken little bird to an untimely end. ”

“ The Bobolink, or Conquedle, has unquestionably great talents as a musician. In the grand concert of Nature it is he who performs the recitative parts, which he delivers with the utmost fluency and rapidity; and one must be a careful listener, not to lose many of his words. He is plainly the merriest of all the feathered creation, almost continually in motion, and singing upon the wing, apparently in the greatest ecstasy of joy.
There is not a plaintive strain in his whole performance. Every sound is as merry as the laugh of a young child ”

“ XXI HOW TO TAKE BAD NEWS For once Bobby Bobolink's heart seemed to come right up into his mouth. Usually he never let anything dash his high spirits. If matters didn't go exactly as they should with him he would laugh and say that probably they would be different to-morrow. And more likely than not he would burst into the jolliest song he knew. Singing like that always helped him amazingly, when a good many people would have moped and looked glum. But now the gloomy warning of Jolly Robin's mournful cousin, the Hermit Thrush, threw a sudden dread into him. ”

“ Meadowlark that Bobby Bobolink's wife might object to her husband's joining the Singing Society. But Bobby seemed doubtful.
"I'll have to ask her," he said. "You see, we're just about to build ourselves a house. And she may think I ought not to belong to any societies at present."
Just then little, yellowish-brown Mrs. Bobolink came skimming over the meadow and dropped down beside them.
"Would you mind, my love, if I joined the Pleasant Valley Singing Society?" Bobby asked her. ”

“ Bobby told him. "I don't see how it would be possible to make a song sound merry if it had to be sung slowly."
The Hermit pondered over that speech.
"There's only one thing for you to do," he said at last. "You must select only mournful songs.... You know you sing them in slow time."
"Pardon me!" Bobby Bobolink said, for he was determined to be just as polite as the Hermit. "I never sing mournful songs. So you see you are mistaken." ”

“ Hear them chirp as they fly overhead some night in the spring or fall. That was Bobolink’s idea, and it was a good one, too. It keeps them from separating in the darkness.
None of the Woodfolk ever learned who the white stranger was. Some thought him a ghost or spirit, but all of them fear even the thought of him. No wonder they have never since dared to stay north during the winter. Of course, the larger ones, like Hawk or Crow, do not always leave, for they are not afraid of the stranger. ”

“ They never tired of entertaining the lady. And whether the yellowish-brown person decided that Bobby Bobolink sangp. 19 louder than the others, or whether she thought his singing was sweeter or gayer than that of his friends, nobody ever found out. Perhaps he managed to say something—in his song—that especially pleased her. Anyhow, it was only a short time before Bobby Bobolink was making such remarks as these to everybody in the meadow:
"My wife says I have the quickest eye for a caterpillar that she ever saw!" and "Mrs. Bobolink and I expect to begin to build a new house at once!" ”

“ Benjamin Bat admitted. "But I've never seen him—nor even heard him."
"Then you are a sound sleeper indeed," the Hermit observed. "He's always a-jingling and a-jangling."
p. 114"That sounds as if he might be a bell," Benjamin Bat remarked.
"He's a bird," the Hermit explained. And then he proceeded to tell Benjamin Bat how Mr. Crow and Jasper Jay had quarrelled because Mr. Crow said that Bobby Bobolink couldn't beat Benjamin Bat in a race, while Jasper Jay claimed that he could. "What I'd like you to do is to have a race with Bobby Bobolink to-morrow," the Hermit announced. ”

“ And furthermore she wanted to be near water. "If you need a drink on a warm day it's not always convenient to go far out of your way for it," she pointed out.
Well, Bobby Bobolink saw at once that Mrs. Bobolink had made up her mind, and there was no use trying to change it. Besides, he wanted to please her.
"Then, my dear, where would you like to have our house built?" he asked.
p. 39"I should prefer to settle in the lower end of the meadow, near Cedar Swamp," she replied. "The ground thereabouts is just damp enough to suit me. And there's always plenty of water to drink in the swamp.... ”

“ Bobby Bobolink declared. "When we begin work on our new house I shall be singing most of the time."
"How often does your Society meet?" Mrs. Bobolink asked Mr. Meadowlark.
"We have a little sing almost every fine day," he informed her. "But your husband needn't come to every meeting—ifp. 28 he's too busy. ”

“ The bobolink never soars like the lark, as the poets would have us believe, but generally sings on the wing, flying with a peculiar self-conscious flight horizontally thirty or forty feet above the meadow grass. He also sings perched upon the fence or tuft of grass. He is one of the greatest poseurs among the birds.
In spring and early summer the bobolinks respond to every poet's effort to imitate their notes. "Dignified 'Robert of Lincoln' is telling his name," says one; "Spink, spank, spink," another hears him say. But best of all are Wilson Flagg's lines:
... ”

“ Indeed, poor Bobolink is still so fearful of the “white spirit” that he never feels safe until he has flown all the way to South America.
But how do they know when the stranger is coming? Ah! that is what has puzzled so many of us. Have you ever noticed in the winter the little slate-colored fellow with a white breast, who comes to us just before the snow season? It is Snowbird, of course. He, too, lives in the north, but not so far away as the white enemy. At the first sign of danger he hastens south to warn his friends. ”

“ As a rule he had little to say to his neighbors. But soon after Bobby Bobolink came to the swamp to live the Hermit began to talk more freely. He began to make complaints, saying that he had chosen Cedar Swamp as a quiet place to live and it was upsetting to him to have any one as harum-scarum as Bobby Bobolink settle in the neighborhood.
p. 98And one day the Hermit even spoke to Bobby Bobolink himself and took him to task, although nobody had introduced Bobby to him. And generally the Hermit wouldn't speak to anybody who hadn't made his acquaintance like that.
"Young man!" ”

“ After moving to Cedar Swamp Bobby Bobolink often met a spry gentleman who lived there. His name was Ferdinand Frog. And being a tailor, he always took special notice of everybody's clothes. For himself Mr. Frog preferred a dark green suit, somewhat spotted, and a white waistcoat. And since he spent a great deal of his time in the water, his white waistcoat always looked very spick-and-span. Yes! Ferdinand Frog was an elegant person. ”

“ II THE LATEST ARRIVAL Bobby Bobolink did not reach Pleasant Valley in time to spend May Day with his old friends of the summer before. And although everybody was disappointed not to see him—and hear him—the feathered folk tried to be cheerful and told one another that Bobby ought to arrive almost any day.
"He always finds it hard to leave the rice fields in the South," Mr. Red-winged Blackbird observed with a knowing wink at old Mr. Crow, as the two stopped for a chat on the morning after May Day. "It's rice-planting time in the South,"p. 7 Mr. Red-winged Blackbird explained. ”

“ I know it," the Hermit corrected him. "No bird can crowd one note upon another the way you do without running a terrible risk. If you don't do differently, some fine day your wife is going to miss you. And when the neighbors search for you, and find nothing but a few feathers scattered on the ground, they'll know what has happened to you."
Bobby Bobolink actually began to tremble as the Hermit described the terrible end that awaited him. ”

“ Bobolink remarked. "But here's the way we'll fix it: Andy and me, why, we'll be the pioneers on the job, starting in right now, while you others curl up somewhere, and get busy taking your forty winks. At eleven-ten we'll give you the foot, and take your places. Jack left me his little watch, so we could tell how time goes; but sure, you can hear the clock in the church steeple knock off the hours. And for the last time, listen to me; not one wink must any sentry take while on duty. Sleeping on post is the most terrible thing you can do. ”

“ Richard Steele, the rollicking horse-guardsman, posing as a Christian hero, is a human parallel. With a black vest buttoned to the throat, a black cap and choker, bobolink's front is as solemn as the end-man's at a minstrel show. But what a coat! Buff, white and black in eccentric combination; and at the nape of the neck, a yellow posy, that deepens with the buttercups and fades almost as soon. Bobby is original, but he conforms to taste, and introduces no discordant color-tone into his field of buttercups and clover. In his ecstatic flight he seems to have caught a field flower on his back ”

“ Mr. Red-winged Blackbird was pleased. Anybody could see that. He bowed andp. 5 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." ”

“ XX A HERMIT'S ADVICE There was another, besides Timothy Turtle, who was not pleased when Bobby Bobolink moved to Cedar Swamp at haying time. But this was a very different sort of person. It was Jolly Robin's cousin, Mr. Hermit Thrush. Everybody called him "the Hermit" for short, because he was a quiet gentleman, who did not like to attract attention, but preferred to spend his time in a thicket on the edge of the swamp. He had a beautiful, sweet song, which he sang in a calm, unruffled fashion when he thought nobody was near. ”

“ Bobolink rubbed his chin reflectively.
"A heap of difference between plain tramps, and the kind they call yeggs; isn't there, Paul?" he asked, presently.
"Everybody says so," came the answer. "Yegg-men are supposed to be the toughest members of the tramp tribe. They're really burglars or safe-blowers, who pretend to be hoboes so they can prowl around country towns, looking up easy snaps about the banks and stores that ought to be good picking. And so you think these four men might belong to that crowd, do you, Bobolink?" ”

“ A minute later and they found themselves inside the basement of the church, which was used as a gymnasium for the boys; there being no Y. M. C. A. in the town.
"Do we get a light?" asked Bobolink, as he stared into the darkness.
"Better not," advised Paul, "for that would give the whole thing away. The whole stack of things is piled up in the center, so we needn't tumble over it. And William, you know where to put your hand on those clubs, don't you?" ”

“ Bobby answered with a short laugh. "But he'll cut the grass all over the meadow. And even if our children should escape with their lives, there's still Henry Hawk to think of. He could see them easily enough, with the grass all gone from above the nest."
That was reason enough for Mrs. Bobolink. She wanted to move rightp. 73 away. But there was something to prevent that.
"We certainly can't leave here till the children have learned to fly better than they do now," she said. "But as soon as they can handle themselves well enough we'll go. We'll know—won't we—when Farmer Green begins to mow?" ”

“ I might 'a thought Jud was giving us a yarn to explain why he didn't have anything to show for his morning's work; but both Little Billie and Gusty saw the same thing. Say, that's another link we got to straighten out. What's a crazy man doing up here; and is he in the same bunch that made these tracks?"
"That's something we don't know," admitted Paul.
"But we mean to find out," asserted Bobolink, with a determined snapping of his jaws.
"Perhaps so—anyhow, we'll make a brave try for it," Paul declared.
"He wasn't one of these four, that's flat," said Tom Betts. ”