AT THE FARM there was a cuckoo clock of which everyone was very fond. But one day something went wrong with its machinery, and the little wooden cuckoo would no longer pop out of its door and cry "cuckoo" at the hours and the half hours.
Of course the farmer and his wife telephoned the clock repairer,
but the clock repairer could not find out what was wrong.
"We shall have to send the cuckoo to Switzerland where it was made," said the clock repairer. "Only the man who made it will understand what needs to be done."
"But then it won't be back until spring!" cried the farmer's wife, "and it is only fall now. How shall we be happy all winter if we can't hear our cuckoo? The children will always be late for school, I'm afraid."
The clock repairer shrugged his shoulders and carried off the broken cuckoo to the post office to begin its long journey to Switzerland.
The farmer sat and thought and thought and at last he wrote out a dozen neat notices, which he tacked up, here and there, on the trees and the fence posts particularly frequented by birds. There were still many flocks about, for they had not yet migrated south, and they gathered near the signs and read them with much twittering and tittering.
The signs were all alike and read:
"Comfortable home for the winter in a cuckoo clock for the right bird. Bird seed and fresh water supplied daily. Only obliga• tion to call the hours as much like a cuckoo as possible. Applicants please rap at first left-hand window for interview."
Well, the birds all read the notice and laughed.
"As though we'd give up our palms and sunshine!" they cried. "Why, migration is our time of adventure, after raising the chil• dren! Summer is nice, but domestic life is full of cares. Now we're off for travel and fun! Catch any of us living in a cuckoo clock all winter!"
The bluebirds and the finches, the robins and the bobolinks, the
thrushes and the catbirds all said about the same thing, all except one young robin who kept coming back to read the signs.
"It's time to fly! It's time to fly!" called his brothers and sisters. "Why are you wasting your time reading that notice, you silly thing?"
"I'm not silly," cried the young robin. "I'm just different, and
that's not the same thing, whatever you all may think. You want to go south and see those alligators and pink flamingos again, but
I've seen them once. I really wonder what it's like inside a house, and what a human being does, sitting by the fire. I wonder if I'd like bird seed? I wonder if I can make a noise like a cuckoo?"
His brothers and sisters all stared at this strange bird, who had been hatched, like them, from a pretty blue egg, and who had
grown up in the same round nest under their mother's wing, and yet wanted to do and know things they didn't want to do or know at all.
"Do you really mean it?" they asked, and at the awe in their
tone, the young robin decided that he did really mean it. So before he could change his mind, he hopped to the first left-hand window and tapped on it with his bill, and the farmer's wife opened it, and called her husband and they made an agreement, which included angleworms, whenever possible.
"All right," said the young robin, and then he called over his shoulder to his waiting brothers and sisters, speaking more boldly than he really felt, "I'll be seeing you in the spring!"
"In the spring!" they echoed, and away they flew south, south, south.
From that moment the robin had the time of his life. Every• thing was new to him. He liked his apartment in the clock, and he liked keeping regular hours. At first he tried to make noises like a cuckoo, but his own song was so pretty that the farm family suggested that, after all, he might as well use it, and he varied it, as usual, according to the weather outside.
He loved watching the icicles beyond the window and the cur• tains of snow falling across a white world. He liked to hear the farmer at the door, stamping the caked snow from his feet before
he came in. He liked to see the farmer's wife bringing in the din• ner. He watched the children at their games. And then he enjoyed the privacy of being able to close his own door when he chose to sit in his own warm little room.
All winter the farm family and the robin got on very happily together, but as spring came, and the last icicle started to drip,
and the green grass began to push up through the old leaves on the ground, the robin grew restless.
"There are buds on the trees," he sighed. "Oh, I wish I were
flying! I want to run along the grass with my feet pattering like rain, and to turn my ear to the ground to listen to the high voices of the angleworms! I want to sing in a wind, I want to wake up at dawn in a hedge! Oh, I want to be out!" But he remembered his agreement and stayed where he was.
After this had been going on for a week or so, the postman one day brought a registered package from Switzerland. Yes! You are right! The wooden cuckoo had made its return journey from across the sea and was all ready to take up its usual duties.
"I hope it's not too early for you to be out?" the farmer asked the robin.
"Oh, no!" sang the robin. "I've had a beautiful winter indoors, thank you, and now I'm ready for spring outdoors," and as the farmer's wife opened the window, away he flew.
And just then, who should come flying down from the sky but his brothers and sisters? They had only the usual migration stories to tell, which robins have been telling for thousands of years, but the young robin had wonders to relate, such as no robin had ever known before. He became a leader among the robins, and chose the prettiest robin lady to be his wife, and picked out the finest crotch in the best tree for his nest, and sang the gladdest and loudest songs.
But now and then he would tap on the window, and the farmer or his wife or one of the children would open it, and the robin
would drop in for a short social visit to be sure that all was going well in the house.
And then the real cuckoo would hurry out, a little ahead of time, to see what was happening, for, of course, it could hear the robin's voice. And then it would cry "cuckoo" with particular care, and bow and bow particularly low, just to show the robin how a real artist should perform!
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