FACING PAGE

"'Hello, Robin Redbreast,' called Bobby, 'I'm glad
you are back again'" 7

"Up, up, went the kite into the sky" 12

"When he saw it he cried, 'Somebody's been digging in
my garden and here she is fast asleep'" 27

"Before they could run across the bridge, Old Bell
Wether walked up out of the creek and started for
home" 35

"'Stop, Father, stop!' he said" 58

"Bobby clung to Rover's collar until they reached
shallow water" 94

"Bobby felt happy and grand. Prince felt happy and grand" 100

[Illustration: WHAT ROBIN REDBREAST KNEW]

I

One cold morning in March, Bobby Hill was wakened by a sound he had not
heard since last Fall, "Chirp, chirp, cheer-up."

"That sounds just like a robin," he thought.

He sat up in bed and looked out of the window. It was a cold, dark,
stormy morning. Heavy clouds covered the sky. The North wind was blowing
the snow hither and thither.

Bobby leaned nearer the window so he could see the ground. There was the
snow like a blanket of white over the yard and the road and the fields.
There were the snowdrifts like mountains and castles along the fences.

Bobby shivered as he looked at it and snuggled back under the covers.

"I must have been dreaming," he thought. "It isn't time for robins."

But he had no sooner settled down for another nap than he heard it
again, "Chirp, chirp, cheer-up."

He got up and dressed quickly and went downstairs.

"Mother," he said, "I heard something that sounded just like a robin.
What could it have been?"

"It _was_ a robin," said Mother. "Come here and see him."

Bobby ran to the Big South Window. There on a branch of the maple tree
was Robin Redbreast singing merrily.

"I thought the robins always stayed down South until Spring," said
Bobby. "Why did he come back in the dead of Winter?"

"Spring is almost here," said Mother.

"Oh, indeed it can't be," said Bobby, "it is so cold and snowy."

"Robin knows," said Mother.

But Bobby looked out and saw the fields still covered with snow, and saw
the huge snowdrifts like mountains and castles along the fences and the
whirling snowflakes in the air, and thought, "Robin is mistaken this
time."

After