Featherland | Page 7

the rookery, till the jackdaw came back looking so cunning and knowing, that every one could plainly see that nothing very serious was the matter.
As soon as he got up to his place in the cedar all the birds crowded round him to make inquiries; but the daw began to teaze them, and wouldn't tell anything for a few minutes, and then in a half whisper he said something to the starling.
"Tchitch!" said Specklems, "is that all? why I'd have two dozen hatchings without making one half of that disturbance. Dear friends," he continued, turning round to the assembled birds, "dear friends, it's a great to-do about nothing at all; for all that hullabaloo is because there are some young rooks hatched."
"Boo! oh! er! ah!" cried all the birds in all sorts of tones of disgust and annoyance. "What a shame.--Stupid things," and many other expressions of indignation at being startled about such a piece of rubbish, burst from the birds; and directly after there was a whirl, and a rush, for all the birds darted off in the greatest haste to get to their business again, to make up for lost time; and would not leave it afterwards although a jay flew over screaming harshly; and a stray hen got in the garden scratching the flower beds, and had to be hunted out; nor yet even when Mrs Puss came slinking down the garden, and round all the flower beds; for this was a terribly busy time, and every moment was of value, though certainly food began to be much more plentiful now the warm and genial sun began to shine longer every day, and made bud after bud burst into beautiful emerald green leaves, that made the trees cast a deeper shade, and began to conceal the nests--even those of the rooks up in the tall limes.
CHAPTER FIVE.
PRETTY PUSSY.
A nice job had Mr and Mrs Spottleover with their young ones; they were not amiable and dutiful children, but spent all their time in grumbling and shouting for more food, till they nearly drove the old folks mad, and Mrs Spottleover said she would never have been married if she had known; "no; that she wouldn't." Tiresome children hers were, for they were no sooner hatched, and lay at the bottom of the nest all eyes and mouth, with just a patch of grey woolly fluff stuck on their backs, than they began to open their great beaks, and gorge everything the old ones brought; till you would almost have thought they must have killed themselves; but they did not; they only grew; and that, too, at such a rate, that before they were fledged they used to push, crowd, and fight because, they said, the nest was too tight; and it was almost a wonder nobody fell overboard. Beautiful beaks they had, too, as they grew older, and sweet voices, that subsided into a querulous grumbling when the old birds had gone; but directly father or mother returned, tired and panting, to settle on the bush, up popped every bird, and strained every neck, and wide open sprang every beak, ready for the coming "slug, grub, or wire-worm."
"My turn--my turn--my turn--my turn," chorused the voices; ready to snap up the coming morsel like insatiable young monsters as they were; and this time it was a fine fat worm that Mrs Spottleover found on the grass plot far away from his hole, and had killed and then brought him in triumph to her little ones for breakfast.
"Now, one at a time, children; one at a time; don't be greedy," said dame Spottleover; and then she popped the beautiful, juicy, macaroni-like morsel into the beak of number one, who began to gobble it down for fear anyone else should get a taste; but number four saw a chance, and snapped hold of the other end of the worm and swallowed ever so much, till at last he and his brother had their heads close together; when they began to pull and quarrel--quarrel and pull--till Mrs Spottleover turned her own beak into a pair of scissors, snipped the disputed morsel in two, boxed both the offenders' ears, said she would take the worm away--but did not, as it was all gone--and then flew off for a fresh supply.
In came father with three green caterpillars fresh from off the cauliflowers, popped them in as many beaks, and he, too, flew off on his day's work to hunt out savoury morsels for his little tyrant-like children.
"I can fly," said number three; "I know I can. I mean to try soon, and get my own bits. I know I can."
"You can't," said one brother; "you can't. You would come down wop! and couldn't get up again. You ain't strong enough to fly yet."
"I am.