children simply have to stay in their nest until they are ready to
fly! It is such a job to feed and care for them! They never seem to get
enough to eat!"

Just then they heard Mister Robert Robin calling. He was standing beside
the nest and saying, "Tut! Tut! Tut!--Tut! Tut! Tut!"

"Mister Robin is getting uneasy so I had better hurry home before he
does something desperate!"

Mrs. Partridge watched Mrs. Robin as she flew back to her nest in the
tall basswood tree.

"That little Mrs. Robin is a very neat sort of a little body!" she said
to herself. "I just know that she is a tidy nest keeper,--she always
looks so spick and span, herself!"

Robert Robin could hardly wait until Mrs. Robin got back to their tree.
He was in such a hurry. The moment she settled herself on the nest he
darted away across the fields, straight to where the row of cherry trees
bordered the farmer's garden.

He wanted to see if the cherries were ripe. But he was surprised to find
that the cherries were all green and hard, and were too sour to even
taste like a cherry.

"What makes the cherries so late, this year?" he thought to himself. "It
does seem to me that these trees were in bloom so many weeks ago, that
it is high time for them to be ready with their cherries!"

Robert Robin was sitting in the top of one of the farmer's cherry trees,
thinking about the cherries that ought to be ripe when he saw a cat in
the farmer's garden.

It was a big Maltese cat. It was a pretty cat, but Mister Robert Robin
could not see anything pretty about a cat, and he did not like the
looks of this one.

"I never saw this cat before!" thought Robert Robin. "The farmer must
have a new cat! I hope it is a house-cat instead of a cat that goes
prowling around the fields and woods!"

The big Maltese cat went over to the strawberry bed and lay down on some
straw. Then the farmer's wife came into the garden, and there was a
little boy with her. He was her sister's boy, and he was going to spend
the summer at the farmer's home. The boy had a tin whistle, and once in
a while he would blow upon it. The farmer's wife was thinking to
herself, "After he goes to bed to-night, I am going to hide that whistle
where he can't find it!" But she did not say a word to the little boy
about the whistle.

The little boy saw the big Maltese cat lying on the strawberry bed, and
the little boy went up close to the cat and blew his tin whistle at the
cat. The big Maltese cat