Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin | Page 9

her kitchen window and laughed and laughed, and laughed. "That poor robin thought he was a goner!" she said to herself. "That old owl is good for something, after all!"
Widow Blunt's full-blooded Plymouth Rock Rooster came around the house with four hens. He was going to show the hens where the cherries were falling on the ground. One of the hens saw the big owl sitting in the cherry tree.
"See that terrible bird in the tree!" she said. Mister Rooster looked up and saw Mister Sparrow sitting in the English currant bush.
"I could eat four birds like that one!" said the rooster.
"You are very brave!" said the hen, "but something tells me that I do not care for cherries to-day!" and the hen started running for the barn.
Just then Mister Rooster saw the big owl.
"Ca-daa-cut! Ca-daa-cut!" he screamed. "Run for your lives!" and the big rooster was one of the first to get under the barn.
Widow Blunt rocked back and forth in her splint-bottomed chair and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. "It is better than a vaudeville!" she said.
Mister Samson Crow came flying over, and he saw the big owl sitting in Widow Blunt's early cherry tree.
Samson Crow was very much surprised to see an owl sitting in a cherry tree in the daytime, and he said to himself: "My eyes are fairly good, and they tell me that a whole owl is sitting in that tree!" Then Samson Crow flew down to where Robert Robin was saying, "Tut! Tut! Tut!" in the harvest apple tree.
"I am very glad that you came, Mister Crow!" said Robert Robin. "Please drive that ugly owl out of that cherry tree so that I may get some more cherries for my baby robins!"
"That is what I am going to do!" said Samson Crow. "But what puzzles me is why any owl would be sitting in a cherry tree right near a house, in broad daylight! Why is he there, and what does he want?"
"I have no doubt but that he is after my cherries!" said Robert Robin.
"That is all I care to know about it!" said Samson Crow. "I will drive him out of your tree this very minute!"
Samson Crow flew straight at the owl. The big owl glared at him with its great glass eyes and never moved. "Caw! Caw!" screamed Samson Crow, but the big owl sat perfectly still. Around and around the tree flew Samson Crow, but the big owl sat perfectly still. Samson Crow perched on a branch and shouted at the big owl, but the big owl did not even turn his head, nor change the steady gaze of his great glass eyes. "Help! Help!" screamed Samson Crow, and he flew away to the woods, and Widow Blunt laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and rocked backwards and forwards in her splint-bottomed chair.
Robert Robin kept waiting, and saying, "Tut! Tut! Tut!--Tut! Tut! Tut!" and wishing that the big owl would fly away, but the big owl did not move, and just stared straight ahead with his great glass eyes.
About four o'clock Widow Blunt put on her sunbonnet and her cotton gloves with the fingers cut off, and with an eight-quart tin pail with strips of zinc soldered across the bottom of it, she climbed the stepladder and picked eight quarts of ripe red cherries from her early cherry tree, and the big stuffed owl watched her with his great glass eyes, and never said a word.
Then the Widow Blunt took her eight-quart pail full of ripe red cherries into her kitchen and set it on the kitchen table, then she went back to where her stepladder was standing under the cherry tree, and climbed her stepladder once more and untied the stuffed owl, and put him under her arm, and carried him back to her parlor and put him on the mantelpiece and set the big glass dome over him, to keep the dust off.
Widow Blunt carried her stepladder back into her woodhouse, then she hung her sunbonnet on a nail behind the kitchen door, and put her cotton gloves in the secretary drawer, where she would know where to find them when the berry-picking season came. Widow Blunt then looked out of the kitchen window, and saw Robert Robin picking one of her ripe red cherries. Then Widow Blunt sat down in her splint-bottomed chair by the kitchen window and watched Robert Robin and Mrs. Robert Robin come and pick her cherries.
"Those robins will not let any of my cherries go to waste," she said. "But I suppose they have a large family to feed, and eight quarts is all I need for myself!" And Widow Blunt rocked backwards and forwards in her splint-bottomed chair and watched the robins, and the next thing she knew the clock struck six