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."

Mrs. Rusty Wren told her husband that he must be mistaken.

"Maybe a bird flew inside the farmhouse by accident," she said.
"What kind of bird is it?" she inquired.

"It _said_ 'Cuckoo!'" Rusty explained. "But if it's a cuckoo, it's
different from any other I've ever heard. You know yourself that
Black Bill Cuckoo who lives in the bushes beyond the orchard says
'_Cow, cow!_'"

"I wouldn't worry, if I were you," Mrs. Rusty advised her husband.
"No doubt this strange bird has already made his escape."

It was then after sunset. And soon Rusty Wren's family were all
fast asleep, without having heard any more bird notes from the
farmhouse.

The next morning Rusty awoke just as the first streaks of gray
showed in the east. He was about to begin his dawn song when
through the kitchen window came that "Cuckoo! cuckoo!" again.

Rusty knew then that the strange bird was still there.

"Did you hear that?" he asked his wife.

She nodded her head silently.

"He's telling Farmer Green that it's time to get up!" Rusty
exclaimed indignantly. "And since Farmer Green has seen fit to get
somebody else to wake him, I certainly shall not trouble myself on
his account any more."

So Rusty Wren flew away to the orchard to sing his dawn song. Jolly
Robin, who lived there, in an old apple tree, was surprised to hear
Rusty Wren singing in that neighborhood so early. And he was still
more astonished at Rusty's melody.

His voice was so much shriller than usual that Jolly Robin knew
instantly that something had displeased him.

"What's happened to upset you?" Jolly Robin inquired, after Rusty
had finished singing.

"I expect to come here and give my dawn song every morning," Rusty
remarked. "And if there's anybody living in the orchard that
objects, he had better move away at once."

Of course Jolly Robin didn't want to do that. And he said as much,
too.

"But I hope you'll sing a little more happily," he told Rusty,
"because I don't like to hear people complaining--and neither does
my wife."

* * * * *

It is easy to understand why Farmer Green and his family overslept,
when one knows that Rusty Wren n