. Crow's disagreeable remarks.

"I don't understand how you can say those things," he said.

Mr. Crow looked narrowly at his small companion before answering. And
then he asked:

"Do you mean to say you never heard of a neck-yoke?"

"Never!" cried Jolly Robin.

"Well, well!" said Mr. Crow. "The ignorance of some people is more
than I can understand.... That was no four-armed man. You said he
looked like Farmer Green's hired-man; and it is not surprising that
he does, for he is the hired-man. He has found an old neck-yoke
somewhere. It is just a piece of wood that fits about his shoulders
and around his neck and sticks out on each side of him like an arm.
And he hooks a pail of milk to each end of the yoke, carrying his load
in that way. I supposed," said Mr. Crow, "that people had stopped
using neck-yokes fifty years ago. It's certainly that long since I've
seen one."

"Then it's no wonder that I made a mistake!" Jolly Robin cried. "For
I'm too young ever to have heard of a neck-yoke, even." And he laughed
and chuckled merrily. "It's a good joke on me!" he said.

But old Mr. Crow did not laugh.

"There you go, making a noise again!" he said crossly. "A person's not
safe in your company." And he hurried off across the meadow. Mr. Crow
was always very nervous when he was near the farmhouse.

But Jolly Robin stayed right there until the hired-man walked back to
the barn. He saw then that what Mr. Crow had told him was really so.
And he never stopped laughing until long after sunset.

XXI

A DOLEFUL DITTY

Jolly Robin often complained about the wailing of Willie
Whip-poor-will. Willie lived in the woods, which were not far from the
orchard. And it was annoying to Jolly to hear his call,
"_Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will_," repeated over and over again for
some two hours after Jolly's bed-time. Neither did Jolly Robin enjoy
being awakened by that same sound an hour or two before he wanted to
get up in the morning. And what was still worse, on moonlight nights
Willie sometimes sang his favorite song from sunset to sunrise.

"What a doleful ditty!" said Jolly Robin. "I must see this fellow and
tell him that he ought to change his tune." But the trouble was that
Jolly Robin did not like to roam about at night. He was always too
sleepy to do that. And in the daytime Willie Whip-poor-will was
silent, resting or sleeping upon the ground in the woods.

But a day came at last when Jolly Robin stumbled upon W