her replied. "Isn't their singing pay
enough for the use of a tin syrup can?"

"That's so!" cried Johnnie. "I never thought of that. Why, they've
turned that can into a regular music-box!"

III

THE ALARM CLOCK

All summer long Farmer Green rose while the world was still gray,
before the sun climbed over the mountain to flood Pleasant Valley
with his golden light.

One might think that Farmer Green would have had some trouble
awaking so early in the morning. And perhaps he might have
overslept now and then had he not had a never-failing alarm clock
to arouse him.

It was not one of those man-made clocks, which go off with a
deafening clatter and bring a startled body to his feet before he
is really awake. No! Farmer Green had something much pleasanter
than that; and it was not in his bedroom, either.

His alarm clock was in his dooryard, for it was Rusty Wren himself
who always warned him that day was breaking and that it was time to
get up and go to work.

Every morning, without fail, Rusty sang his dawn song right under
Farmer Green's window. His musical trill, sounding very much like
the brook that rippled its way down the side of Blue Mountain,
always made Farmer Green feel glad that another day had come.

"If that busy little chap is up----" he often said, meaning Rusty
Wren, of course--"if he's up there's no reason why I should lie
here and sleep."

And since everybody else in the house followed Farmer Green's
custom of rising early, it happened that so small a bird as Rusty
Wren aroused the whole household out of their beds.

To be sure, Johnnie Green--sitting up and rubbing his eyes
sleepily--sometimes wished that Rusty would skip his dawn song once
in a while. And he told his father at breakfast one day that since
he was not a bird, he saw no reason why he should get up with the
sun.

"You needn't," said Farmer Green. "But you know the old saying
about 'early to bed and early to rise,' don't you?"

Johnnie remembered that such habits were supposed to make one
"healthy, wealthy and wise." And since he hated to take medicine,
and was trying to save enough money to buy him a gun, and disliked
to be kept in after school for not knowing his lessons, he decided
that perhaps it was just as well, after all, to follow Rusty
Wren's example.

Now, Farmer Green spoke so often and so pleasantly of Rusty Wren,
saying that nobody could want a better little alarm clock than he,
that Rusty began to