scarcely touched it.

During the night four little baby robins had pecked their way out of the
blue eggs, and when daylight came, Mrs. Robin had cleared the nest of
broken shells and was covering her babies with her warm feathers. Robert
Robin was sitting on the big branch close by. He was oiling and
arranging his feathers with great care.

"You _did_ make it stop raining, didn't you, dear?" said Mrs. Robin.

"I must admit that strange things happen!" said Robert Robin, as he
lifted a feather and oiled it on the under side.

"I have a little surprise for you!" said Mrs. Robin.

Robert Robin looked, and as Mrs. Robin stood up, he saw four little baby
robins. The four little baby robins looked at him and opened their
mouths just as wide as they could.

"Why didn't you tell me they were here?" he said. "The poor little dears
are almost starved!" and away he flew in a great rush to get them some
breakfast. In a few moments he was back again and fed one of them. Then
away he hurried again and in a moment he came carrying more food for the
babies, but the babies looked so nearly alike that Robert Robin fed the
same one twice, and that made Mrs. Robin laugh.

"Men are such blunderbusses!" she said.

"Why don't you have your children marked so one can tell them apart?" he
said.

"I will place little Elizabeth at the north side of the nest, little
Sheldon at the east, Montgomery at the south, and Evelina at the west!"

All day long Robert Robin did nothing except carry food for the baby
robins, but the next day Mrs. Robin helped him, and both of them were
busy, for the four little baby robins were very hungry. They never did
seem to get enough to eat.

"The children have wonderful appetites!" said Mrs. Robin.

"They are simply ravenous!" said Robert Robin.

"What does 'ravenous' mean?" asked Mrs. Robin.

"Ravenous means as hungry as a wolf!" answered Robert Robin. "I wish
that the cherries would hurry and get ripe!"

"Do wolves eat cherries?" asked Mrs. Robin.

"I do not know!" said Robert Robin, "but I do know that ripe red
cherries are good for baby robins, and ever so much easier to find than
bugs and worms!"

"Green cherries make them sick! We must be very careful not to feed our
babies any green cherries!"

"I know where there is an early cherry tree!" said Robert Robin, "and I
am going right over there now and see if any of the early cherries are
ripe!"

So Mrs. Robin waited by their nest while Robe