"For the robins, my son. Haven't you heard that kick follows the robins?" 



"What is luck, father?" 



"Luck, my son, is any good thing which people make for themselves and the 

 folks they think about." 



And the little boy sits down on a buttercup cushion and meditates on luck, 

 while he watches the robins knocking at the doors of the soft-bodied larvze, en- 

 gaged in making luck for other folks. And the boy's own luck takes the right turn 

 all on account of his father setting out a mulberry-tree. 



Whole school-rooms full of children are known to be after the same sort of 

 luck when they plant a tree on Arbor Day ; a cherry-tree or mulberry-tree, or even 

 an apple, in due time is sure to bring forth just the crotch to delight the heart of 

 mother robin in June. Not that the robins do not select other places than apple- 

 trees to nest in. An unusual place is quite as likely to charm them. Let a person 

 interest himself a little in the robin's affairs and he will see startling results by 

 the summer solstice. An old hat in the crotch of a tree, an inverted sunshade, or 

 even a discarded scarecrow, terrible to behold, left over from last year and hidden 

 in the foliage, one and all suggest possibilities to the robins. 



Mud that is fresh and sweet is essential to a robin's nest. Stale, bad-smelling, 

 sour mud isn't fit for use. Sweet, clay-like stuff is what they want. A pack of 

 twigs made up loosely, soft grass and fiber, all delight the nest-builders, who are 

 as sure to select a location near by, as they are sure to stay all summer near the 

 farmer on account of the nearness of food. 



Anywhere from four to thirty feet one may find the nests with little trouble, 

 they are so bulky, all but the delicate inside of them, which is soft as down ; nest- 

 lining being next thing to nest-peopling — the toes of the little new people finding 

 their first means of clinging to life by what is next to them. A well-woven lining 

 gives young robins a delicious sense of safety, as they hold on tight — the instinct 

 to hold on tight being about the first in any young thing, be it bird or human baby, 

 except, perhaps, the instinct of holding its mouth open. 



Some people who do not watch closely suppose the young robin who holds 

 its mouth open the longest and widest gets the most food. We are often mistaken 

 in things. Mother robin understands the care of the young, though she never 

 read a book about it in all her life. Think of her infant, of exactly eleven days, 

 leaving the nest and getting about on its own legs, as indeed it does, more to the 

 astonishment of its own littje self than anybody else. And before the baby knows 

 it, he is singing with all the rest, 



"Cheer up ; cheerily, cheerily, cheer up." 

 The very same song we heard him sing within the Arctic circle, far up to the snow 

 line of the Jade Mountains, alternating his song with the eating of juniper berries. 



But one might go on forever with the robin as he hops and skips and flies from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Alaska to Mexico and other parts; but one 

 would never get to the end of loving him. 



When poor robin at last meets with disaster and cannot pick himself up again, 

 in short, is "gone to that world where birds are blest," the leaves shall remember 



798 



