Families -- Juvenile fiction; Farm life -- Juvenile fiction
So he went up the path again toward the little mound. Bobby was watching
and drove him back.
"I will not let you crow here this morning," he said. "Shoo, shoo!"
Six times Red Top tried to get to the little mound. Six times Bobby
drove him back. Finally, he drove him beyond the horse barn.
"Crow for the walnut tree this morning," he said.
"He won't get to the house again very soon," thought Bobby. So he went
over to the strawberry patch to see whether any strawberries were ripe.
Suddenly, in the apple tree, a robin began to sing. A thrush joined him
from a near-by thicket. Birds began chirping in all the trees.
The Eastern sky began to turn golden. The fleecy white clouds began to
look rosy.
Bobby forgot all about the rooster.
Soon there were birds singing everywhere--robins in the apple orchard,
an oriole in the elm tree, swallows flashing through the farmyard,
bluebirds and yellowbirds on every side. Bobolinks skimming over the
clover field, joined the chorus.
Then on a low limb of the crab-apple tree, a meadow lark began to sing.
Bobby tried to find him, but could not see him among the branches. Such
a wonderful song he had never heard.
The Eastern sky was getting more rosy and more golden.
"It must be the sunrise that makes him so happy," thought Bobby. "I wish
I could sing like that."
So there Bobby stood, golden sunrise in the East, singing birds around
him.
Meanwhile, Red Top was quietly making his way to the house. As far as
the wood-pile he came, and Bobby did not drive him back. As far as the
pump he came.
"I'll soon be there," he thought.
A rooster in the next barn-yard crowed. Then Bobby remembered.
He ran toward the house. There was Red Top on the little mound.
"Oh, I must stop him before he crows," thought Bobby. He shouted, "Shoo,
shoo!"
Just then a loud cock-a-doodle-doo rang out on the morning air.
"I beat you, Bobby," it seemed to say.
Father looked out of his window and said, "Red Top was smarter than you,
wasn't he?"
"I am sorry I let him wake you," said Bobby.
John put his head out of his window and called, "You have lost the
dime, Bobby."
"I don't care," said Bobby. "I heard the birds and saw the sunrise."
Then he chased Red Top down to the Old Red Barn, so Father could finish
his morning nap.
[Illustration: HAYING TIME]
VII
One of the many pretty sights on the farm in early June, was the clover
field, all covered with red blossoms.
It was an interesting place, too.
Bobby and Rover loved to romp in it. The honey bees came to it to get
honey. The bobolinks, like flashes of black and white, skimmed over it
as they sang. The ground-birds had their nests in it.
Bobby knew of three nests there.
But the time had come for cutting the clover.
One morning, Bobby saw Father and Hobson in the tool-shed and
went to see what they were doing. He found them busy about the
mowing-machine--oiling it, tightening the screws and sharpening the
knives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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