ppy's cries continued. There was really no
reason for his alarm. For his wife was away from home, with all their
children. But Mr. Chippy kept flying back and forth in a great flutter.
He too called to young Master Robin that he'd better go home.

Still that knowing youngster paid no heed to his elder's advice.

"If snakes climb trees I've never seen them do it," he scoffed.

"Hi, there! Haven't you seen----" Mr. Chippy started to say. But before
he could finish his question Master Robin interrupted him rudely.

"Certainly I saw him," he cried. "I saw him come out of the wall and go
in again."

"He'll get you if you don't go away!" Mr. Chippy shrieked.

"Let him try!" Master Robin scoffed. He was sorry that Mr. Chippy did
not hear him. But that distracted little person had already hurried off
to warn somebody else.

It was no time at all before Rusty Wren's wife gave a piercing scream.

"That fat Robin boy--he'll be caught!" she wailed.

Now, it made Master Robin very angry to be spoken of in such a way as
that.

"Fat!" he burst out in a loud tone as he stared in Mrs. Wren's
direction. "Who's fat?"

"You are!" said a strange, grumpy voice right behind him--or so it
seemed to young Master Robin.

III

MASTER ROBIN'S LESSON

When young Master Robin heard the strange voice that sounded so grumpy
and so near him he was terribly frightened. He forgot that he thought
himself grown up, and very wise, and quite able to go about alone. He
didn't even look to see who was speaking, but fell backwards off the
limb of the apple tree.

It was lucky for him, too, that he fell just when he did. For a long
brownish person, white underneath, took Master Robin's place on the limb
so promptly that you could hardly have said he jumped into it from
somewhere else. He seemed to have popped out of the tree somewhat as a
freshly popped kernel of corn bursts forth. A moment ago it was not
there! You were watching, but did not see it grow big.

Well, all at once there was silence in the orchard. Everybody was
holding his breath, waiting to see what happened to young Master Robin.
Though he had lost his balance and tumbled backward he righted himself
quite like an old-timer and flew off across the orchard.

"I didn't know snakes could climb trees," he stammered to Mr. Chippy,
who had followed him.

"Snakes!" Mr. Chippy piped. "That wasn't a snake! That was Grumpy
Weasel.... And it's a wonder you ever escaped," he add