inds were chilly, and
the leaves of the big basswood turned brown, and then blew away, Robert
Robin and his whole family flew south, but each Spring when the weather
grew warmer, Robert Robin and Mrs. Robin came hurrying back north, to
build a new nest in their own basswood tree.

"No other place will ever seem like home to me!" said Mrs. Robin.

"I should never get over feeling homesick, if we should lose our tree!"
said Robert Robin.

So every Spring, before the snow banks in the gully were all melted, and
before the yellow water had ceased running down the lane, Mister and
Mrs. Robert Robin were back in their own tree, and were as busy as could
be building a nice new nest.

When Gerald Pox, and Melancthon Coon, and Jim Crow, and Wellington
Woodchuck, and Billy Rabbit, and Major Partridge saw Robert Robin flying
through the bare woods, or heard him singing his clear notes from the
top of his big basswood tree, they would say to themselves, "Robert
Robin is back from the south, and Spring will soon be here." And the
farmer's wife would say, "I heard a robin singing, it will soon be
Spring!" Then she would get her box of garden seeds down from the top
shelf of the kitchen cupboard and look to see if she had some tomato
seeds, and celery seeds, and pepper seeds, and cabbage seeds to plant in
a box by the south window.

Then it would not be long before the snow banks in the gully were all
melted, and the farmer would be fixing his fences and getting ready to
turn his stock out to pasture, and the farmer's wife's celery plants,
and all her other kinds of plants would be up, and Mister Swallow, and
Mister Swift, and Mister Bob-o-link, and all the other Mister Birds and
their wives would be coming back north, and it would be plain to
everybody that Spring was here and that Summer was on the way.

Even the big basswood tree seemed to wait for Robert Robin, and seemed
to miss him when he was away. All Winter the beautiful tree waved his
bare branches in the air, and when the frosty snow sparkled on the
meadows, and the stars were shining in the winter sky, the chilling wind
swept through the woods, and the branches of the tall basswood made a
sound like a sigh. But almost as quickly as Robert Robin returned, the
buds of the big basswood swelled with the green of new leaves, and soon
the great tree was no longer bare, but dressed from his foot to his
highest twig in broad leaves that fluttered in the summer breezes and
m