Chapter 5
Section 5 of Father Thrift and His Animal Friends. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Amber Ventyker. Father Thrift and His Animal Friends.
By Joseph C. Sindelar. Section 5. Trouble in the Forest. Two Bad Boys. the boys and the birds. Trouble in the Forest. The next day was Monday, the 1st of July.
Father Thrift turned the leaf in his homemade calendar. Then he and Shaggy Bear went out into the garden to work. All of a sudden, they heard such a commotion. They looked up and saw a great flock of birds flying toward them. There were robins and bluebirds and kingbirds and bobolinks and brown thrashers and catbirds and meadowlarks and woodpeckers and wrens and all the other birds of the forest. Did they come to sing for Father Thrift because it was the first of July? No,
not one of the birds was singing now. They were chattering and crying, but you could not make out what the fuss was all about. To Father Thrift and Shaggy, it sounded something like this. Char, char, caw, caw, churr. Churr, chi, chi, ping, ping, queet, queet, chick, chuck, wee, wee, Zip, zip, say, say, cong, air, ee, quack, jay, jay, mew, mew, whip, chip, rrr, rrr, meant we're angry. Next time we will fight them.
Now the woodpeckers drummed for quiet rung rung tunk tunk. Then Mr. Robin walked up to Father Thrift. He said, Oh, Father Thrift, we have come to tell you that the boys have been very mean to us. Let me tell you what they did to us. While Mrs. Robin and I were away, they climbed up into the tree where we had built our nest and stole our eggs.
And there were tears in his bright eyes. Then Mr. Bluebird came. He was a pretty little fellow, and mannerly too. Oh, Father Thrift, he said, let me tell you what the boys did to me. My nest was in a hole in your apple tree.
The boys tore the green apples off the tree and threw them all about. They stuffed them into the hole where my nest was, and now I have no home. They are not afraid even of you. Then Mr. Kingbird came up. He said,
What cousin Bluebird has just told you is true? One of the apples struck my nest and knocked it down. There were four speckled eggs in it. I have lost not only my home, but my pretty eggs with it. Is that right, Father Thrift?
And sadness and sorrow were in his voice. Just then Brown Thrasher came along. He was hopping on one foot. Oh, Father Thrift, he said, look what has happened to me. I was harming no one. I was just singing a song when I was hit in the leg. And pretty are the songs you can sing, said Father Thrift. Many, many times have I been made happy by your sweet and cheerful notes.
but who was it that hurt you the boys replied brown thrasher they hit me with a stone from their slingshot and broke my leg now mrs bobolink came up oh father thrift she said sobbing hear me while i was putting our house in order mr bobolink would stand guard to see that no enemies came near us. And he would sing to me at the same time. Such sweet songs as he could sing, I think no other bird could equal him. We too had some eggs in our nest, and we were happy. Yesterday, Mr. Bubble
Link was perched on the tip of a bow, singing, when suddenly he fell to the ground. I flew to see what the trouble was, and do you know what happened? He was dead. He had been hit in the head with a stone. Not far away I saw the boys who killed him. Today we dug a grave and buried him under his favorite tree, and poor Mrs. Bobolink cried harder than ever. Then father and mother meadowlark came up. Oh, Father Thrift, they cried. Listen to what has happened to us. We had four
little children in a nest in the field. The nest was covered over with grasses. We thought it perfectly safe. But while we were away getting food for our little ones, someone stole them all. And the meadowlarks wept as though their hearts would break. It must have been the boys, chorused all the birds. Father Thrift looked very angry. All this is very sad, he said. I am sorry indeed to hear it. But little friends, go home and make the best of things for the present.
Shaggy Bear and I will find some way to help you. Then the birds flew away, and they made such a noise that the clouds trembled in the sky. Two bad boys. For a while, neither Father Thrift nor the bear spoke. Then the queer little old man said, those boys must be punished, Shaggy. They must be taught a lesson. Killing birds is no joke. Tomorrow morning, take your lunch with you and go to the north edge of the forest. There you will find a crooked road that is little traveled.
I believe that is the road over which the boys came. They will come again. Hide yourself behind a tree and watch for them. And when you catch them, bring them to me. Yes, yes, said Shaggy, I certainly will. So early the next morning, Father Thrift packed the bear's lunch and off Shaggy started for the north edge of the forest. But he returned late that night, tired and cross without the boys. The same thing happened the next day and the next.
Shaggy was so discouraged by this time that he thought it was of no use to try again. But Father Thrift said, go just this once more, and if you do not have better luck today, you need not go again. So Shaggy went for the fourth time, and as it happened, he did have Butterlock. When he reached the edge of the forest, he seated himself beside a large tree near the road to watch. But the kind breeze was blowing so softly that he soon fell asleep. And as he slept,
he dreamed a dream, a very strange sort of dream. He dreamed he was the king of honeybee land. All of his subjects were honeybees, and there were exactly one million of them. In another month, there would be half a million more of them. If he had so much honey now, think how much more he would have when the other half million honeybees started to gather it. Now all that he had to do was to eat the honey as fast as the honeybees made it. That seemed easy enough. How he loved
that honey. But soon he found out that the bees are very busy and very thrifty little things. Oh, how very, very busy they kept him, trying to eat all the honey they made. Each day his stomach was getting larger and larger. How much farther could it stretch? Then whizz, he woke up with a start. I thought so. I thought so, he said to himself as he placed his paws on his stomach and rolled up his eyes. But no, his stomach hadn't exploded at all. He could feel that.
Besides, there was an arrow lying right beside him. The arrow must have hit him. Just then, he happened to remember where he was. The boys, he said to himself, the boys in mischief with bow and arrows. He looked around, and there they were, sitting under a tree not a hundred feet away from him. He could see a bow and arrows on the ground beside them.
But what were they doing? They were holding something in their hands. First they would look at it, then they would blow on it. Then they would look again and blow again. The bear crept closer. Everything was clear to him now. The boys had killed a bird and they were trying to find the spot where the arrow had struck it.
So interested were they in this that they did not notice the bear stealing up behind them. When he got right over them, he gave them a dreadful growl. grrr. It was very loud and very fierce. Why did you kill that bird, he asked. I have good mind to eat you alive. And then he gave another fierce growl. The boys acted like frightened rabbits. They were too astonished to speak. The bear picked up the bow and arrows. One, attention,
he commanded. Two, get ready. Three, go. The boys took to the path which led toward their homes, but the bear called them back. You don't understand, he said. Now go the other way. Tonight you must report to Father Thrift. Grrr, and not another word. This last command must have been a bear joke, for the boys had not uttered a word. Then away they all started, the boys as Shaggy's prisoners, for the cave in the forest. The boys and the birds. The boys spent an
uncomfortable night in Father Thrift's cave. Half the time they could not sleep, and worse still, the other half they dreamed such dreadful dreams. But the next morning, after they had had breakfast with Father Thrift and Shaggy Bear, the boys felt much better. Still, they had a feeling that something terrible was about to happen to them. How they longed to go home. Then the queer little old man seated himself on a log just outside the door of the cave. Shaggy Bear, he said,
go tell Jenny Wren to ask all the birds of the forest to come here. Soon all the birds had come and oh, what an excitement there was when they saw the boys. Shoot them with an arrow, hit them with a stone, kill them, the angry little creatures cried. Father Thrift lifted his hand for order. When things were quiet and the birds had gathered around him, the queer little old man stood up. In a soft and somewhat sad voice, he said to the birds, my friends, let us act calmly and justly.
Let us consider well before we decide on the punishment which these boys should receive if they are found guilty. But, protested Mr. Robin, they climbed into our tree and stole our eggs. They ruined my home, cried Cousin Bluebird, and they wasted your apples in doing it. Yes, and they knocked down my nest and broke all the eggs in it, added Mr. Kingbird. They broke my leg with a stone from a slingshot, piped Brown Thrasher.
And they killed my poor husband, cried Mrs. Bobolink. They stole our four little children, sobbed the meadowlarks. And they shot a bird with an arrow yesterday, added Shaggy Bear. Here is the bird. Here, too, are the bow and the arrow. And he handed them all to Father Thrift.
Why, they've shot my cousin Blackbird, cried the crow, who had been quiet up to now. I have a good mind to bite off their noses and scratch out their eyes. Char, char, char! All the birds became very much excited. They screamed and fluttered their wings, and their eyes shone with anger. The boys were badly frightened, but Father Thrift quickly restored order.
He said, let us first hear what the boys have to say. We will ask them a few questions. He faced the boys. Did you do what the birds say you did, he asked. The boys hung their heads in shame.
Then one of them answered after a pause. I guess so. Why did you do it, asked Father Thrift. Well, replied the other boy, most of the birds are no good anyway. They just eat everything we plant. What of yours have they eaten? asked Father Thrift. The robins have been stealing our cherries, said the boy, until we have hardly any left for ourselves.
The bluebirds eat our berries and grapes. The kingbirds eat not only our fruit, but our honeybees as well. The brown thrashers eat our raspberries and currants, while whole flocks of bubble ninks get their food from our oat fields. The meadow larks eat our grain. And as for the blackbirds and crows, they are the worst thieves in the world. They even pull up our sprouting grain.
So why shouldn't we kill the birds? They are our enemies, and they do nothing but harm. And besides, we haven't killed more than a dozen of them. Who would miss a dozen in a world so full of birds? By this time, most of the birds were quivering with anger,
and they cried again, Shoot them with an arrow! Hit them with a stone! Kill them! Who would miss two boys in a world so full of boys?
Listen, my friend, said Father Thrift, I agree with you that the boys deserve to be treated in the same way that they have treated you. They have been cruel. Still, let us not act in haste or anger. Let us think matters over well. Perhaps we shall find that some wrong has been done on both sides. Go now and return at two o'clock. We will decide then what is best to do. End of section five.
