ade a good beginning. But he must
learn more at once. There's no telling when the cat may come into the
orchard to hunt for field-mice. And you know what would happen then."

His wife shuddered. But Mr. Robin told her not to worry.

"I'll soon have this youngster so he can fly as well as anybody," he
declared.

So he went and hopped about on the ground with Jolly for a little
while, showing him how to find worms beneath the grass carpet of the
orchard.

And then, in a loud voice, Mr. Robin suddenly cried:

"The cat! The cat!" And he flew into an old tree near-by.

Jolly Robin had never seen Farmer Green's cat. But he had heard that
she was a dreadful, fierce creature. And when his father shouted her
name Jolly was so startled that he forgot he didn't quite know how to
fly. Before he knew what he was doing, he followed his father right up
into the old apple tree and perched himself on a low branch.

That was the way he learned to fly, for he never had the least trouble
about it afterward. And as soon as he realized that he had actually
flown from the ground to the bough he was so pleased that he began to
laugh merrily.

As for the cat, she was not in the orchard at all. Indeed, Jolly's
father had not said that she was. You see, he had played a joke on his
son.

Now, up to that time Jolly Robin had not been named. You must
remember that he was not two weeks old. And having three other
children of the same age, his parents had not been able to think of
names for all of them.

But this big youngster laughed so heartily that his father named him
"Jolly," on the spot. And "Jolly" he remained ever afterward.

III

THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD

After he learned to fly, Jolly Robin's father took him into the woods
to spend each night in a roost where there were many other young
robins, whose fathers had likewise brought them there.

Jolly learned a great deal from being with so many new friends. It was
not long before he could find plenty of food for himself, without help
from anyone.

He discovered, too, that there was safety in numbers. For example, if
Jasper Jay made too great a nuisance of himself by bullying a young
robin, a mob of robins could easily put Jasper to flight.

"_Always help other people!_" That was a motto that all the youngsters
had to learn. And another was this: "_Follow your father's lead!_"

Later in the season, in October, when the robin cousins and uncles and
aunts and sisters and