Welcome to Homeschool Story Time: Week 23.
Helping animals is always a compassionate thing to do.
Or is it?
Elizabeth discovers the answer to that question from papa robin in this week’s story.
Read on to find out what she learns.
Papa Robin
by Frances C. Sparhawk
One summer morning Elizabeth sat on the doorstep, reading. But she looked up often to see the birds fly about, or to watch the butterflies go sailing past.
By and by she heard a shrill chirping. “Poor little bird,” she thought, “where can it be? Is it hurt?” She went out into the yard, and looked about her.
There, under a tree, was a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. Elizabeth took it up gently. As it lay in her hand, it looked like a soft ball. It chirped as loud as it could, and fluttered.
“Poor birdie,” said Elizabeth, “I will try and take you home.” And she looked up into the tree. She could see the nest the fledgling had tumbled out of; but she was not tall enough to reach it: so she stood on a knot in the trunk of the tree, and put the nestling in its home.
She saw the father and the mother bird in the tree, and said to herself that they would take care of the little one. Then she went back to her reading.
Pretty soon she heard the chirping again. This time she knew where to look, and there was the baby bird on the ground, crying and fluttering as before.
“Papa and mamma Robin ought to take care of you, birdling,” she said. But she stepped on the knotted tree trunk, and put back the bird a second time.
Then she sat down on the doorstep, and watched to see what the parent-birds would do. They flew here and there about the nest, and sang a few notes that Elizabeth knew must be bird-talk. She wondered if they were trying to find a better place for their baby.
But as she was thinking how much care they were taking of it, out tumbled the little one a third time. “You stupid old robin!” she cried. “Do you expect some one to be putting back your birdie for you all day? Why don’t you keep it in the nest?”
She picked up the birdie, and was about to put it back a third time, when, as she held it, a strange thing happened; for down flew the robin, and gave her a sharp peck on the forehead.
Elizabeth stood still. She didn’t know what to make of this. But soon she began to laugh; and then she put the baby bird gently on the ground, and went away. She at last understood what papa Robin meant to say to her by his peck. This is it: “Don’t interfere when I’m teaching my child to fly. You are very big, and perhaps you know a great deal; but you don’t seem to know that it’s not right to keep birds in the nest all summer. They would never find out what their wings are for.”
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Many blessings,
