riday our Speckle was shy and
wild, flying about the edge of the wood with this first friend of his
own feather, but he came to perch on the piazza rail at twilight, as
usual, keeping us company while we took our open-air dinner, and
responding to our blandishments with a drowsy chirp. When he soared to
choose his slumber-spray in one of the tall trees before the house, we
strained our eyes to follow him into the shadows and called up laughing
counsels and good-nights as long as he would answer. But the next
morning an evil-eyed black cat sat on our steps and, hour after hour,
no Robin Hood appeared. Mary spent most of the forenoon in the woods
and, after luncheon, we both went calling through a leafy world with a
Babel of chirps about us. "Thim birds, they're just a-mocking me,"
wailed Mary. But suddenly we both heard, hurrying along the air, that
dear, unmistakable baby squawk, and in an instant more our own little
Speckle came plumping down on my head, where he rode triumphantly into
the house, flapping his funny right wing all the way and gasping with
speed and excitement. He had perhaps been in a fight, for one side of
his guileless face was badly pecked. Throughout the afternoon he
devoured one full meal after another, allowing ten-minute siesta
intervals, with all the enthusiasm of a prodigal son, and then he must
have a bath, and then he must be held and petted, and all the
while--yep, yep, yep! flop, flop, flop!--he was trying to tell the
story of his terrible adventures. Whatever they were, he was a reformed
little robin, and spent the Sunday partly on my window box, where he
would play for fifteen minutes together with the nutshells that the
chickadees had emptied, and partly under a leafy canopy in the oak
within easy squirrel-leap beyond, not having a chirp to chirp to any
bad bird who would lead him into mischief.

For a fortnight longer Robin was our daily joy. It seemed to make us
intimates of the woods to hear, as we were walking there, the hail of a
familiar voice from overhead and look up to see our own small Speckle
peeping down at us from some breezy twig against the blue. For he soon
recovered from his penitence and went sailing through the trees on ever
longer voyages of discovery, being often out of call for two or three
hours at a time. But he was always on the window box, where no other
robin ever came, in the early morning from half-past three on to seven,
overflowing with conversation and ins