The Tale of Jolly Robin   By: Arthur Scott Bailey (1877-1949)

TUCK ME IN TALES (Trademark Registered)

BY ARTHUR SCOTT BAILEY

AUTHOR OF SLEEPY TIME TALES

(Trademark Registered)

The Tale of Jolly Robin The Tale of Old Mr. Crow The Tale of Solomon Owl The Tale of Jasper Jay The Tale of Rusty Wren The Tale of Daddy Longlegs The Tale of Kiddie Katydid The Tale of Buster Bumblebee The Tale of Freddy Firefly The Tale of Betsy Butterfly The Tale of Bobby Bobolink The Tale or Chirpy Cricket The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug The Tale of Reddy Woodpecker The Tale of Grandmother Goose

[Illustration: Jolly Robin Asks Jasper Jay About The Sign Frontispiece (Page 44)]

TUCK ME IN TALES

THE TALE OF JOLLY ROBIN

BY ARTHUR SCOTT BAILEY

Author of "SLEEPY TIME TALES" (Registered Trademark)

ILLUSTRATED BY HARRY L. SMITH

NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1917, by GROSSET & DUNLAP

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I Nestlings 1 II Learning to Fly 6 III The Wide, Wide World 11 IV What Jolly Did Best 16 V Laughing for Mr. Crow 21 VI Tickling a Nose 26 VII A New Way to Travel 33 VIII Jolly is Left Behind 38 IX Jolly's Mistake 43 X The White Giant 48 XI What a Snowball Did 53 XII Jolly Feels Better 57 XIII The Hermit 64 XIV One or Two Blunders 69 XV Lost A Cousin! 74 XVI Jealous Jasper Jay 80 XVII Only a Rooster 86 XVIII On Top of the Barn 91 XIX Curious Mr. Crow 96 XX The Four Armed Man 101 XXI A Doleful Ditty 107 XXII Shocking Manners 112 XXIII A Cold Greeting 117

THE TALE OF JOLLY ROBIN

I

NESTLINGS

Of course, there was a time, once, when Jolly Robin was just a nestling himself. With two brothers and one sister all of them, like him, much spotted with black he lived in a house in one of Farmer Green's apple trees.

The house was made of grass and leaves, plastered on the inside with mud, and lined with softer, finer grass, which his mother had chosen with the greatest care.

But Jolly never paid much attention to his first home. What interested him more than anything else was food. From dawn till dark, he was always cheeping for something to eat. And since the other children were just as hungry as he was, those four growing babies kept their parents busy finding food for them. It was then that Jolly Robin learned to like angleworms. And though he ate greedily of insects and bugs, as well as wild berries, he liked angleworms best.

Jolly and his sister and his brothers could always tell when their father or their mother brought home some dainty, because the moment the parent lighted upon the limb where the nest was built they could feel their home sink slightly, from the added weight upon the branch.

Then the youngsters would set up a loud squalling, with a great craning of necks and stretching of orange colored mouths.

Sometimes, when the dainty was specially big, Mr. or Mrs. Robin would say, " Cuck! cuck! " That meant "Open wide!" But they seldom found it necessary to give that order.

Somehow, Jolly Robin managed to eat more than the rest of the nestlings. And so he grew faster than the others. He soon learned a few tricks, too. For instance, if Mrs. Robin happened to be sitting on the nest, to keep her family warm, when Mr. Robin returned with a lunch for the children, Jolly had a trick that he played on his mother, in case she didn't move off the nest fast enough to suit him.