BEFORE BREAKFAST. 61 
ripe raspberries, until his mouth and downy moustache 
were all stained, the little winebibber. 
“A pretty drinker you are,” said the mocker; “give 
us a treat.” 
Then all the other birds fell to tapping the berry 
bottles, till a lady came out of the house and cried, 
“Shoo!” flirting her gingham apron at them and rat- 
tling her tin pail against the sunflower stalks in a way 
that made the birds know she was in earnest. Then 
the lady began filling her pail, while the birds watched 
her from behind the leaves. 
“Keep still,” said Mr. Robin; “she’ll never see them 
all. There’ll be plenty left. There are always more 
under the leaves. Let’s go off to the strawberry bed.” 
So the birds flew off to the strawberry bed on the 
other side of the garden, and picked the ripe red side 
out of ever so many of the berries. Then a man came 
out of the house and cried, “Shoo!” just as the lady 
had done. But he did not begin to pick the berries. 
He stuck a great ugly scarecrow up in the middle of 
the strawberry bed, and laughed to himself as he 
thought how scared the birds would be when they 
saw it. 
But the birds, sitting in the trees, laughed too, and 
gay old Mr. Mocker said, “He can’t deceive us. We 
know a scarecrow from a man any day.” 
As soon as the man’s back was turned, the birds 
came down and chattered in the scarecrow’s face, and 
sat on the rim of his hat, and wiped their bills on his 
