AUGUST 13: The Catbird
“Tell me what happened, Mr. Catbird,” said Billie Brownie.
“Well, I was sitting on the fence, this very same fence upon which I’m now sitting, and some children were playing in the yard near-by.
“While they were playing I made all sorts of queer sounds just like a cat.
“You know how I can take off the various sounds of a cat?”
“I most certainly do that,” said Billie Brownie.
“They didn’t know where the cat could be, and they began to look for the cat.
“I almost fell off the fence laughing when they started to look for the cat.
“Then when they were looking by the cellar stairs and under the old tree yonder I took great chances that they might see that I was not the cat, and I made the same sounds again.
“They kept saying to each other:
“‘Well, I’m sure I heard a cat that time.’
“I really and truly almost fell off the fence laughing. Then they came back and went on with their games. They saw me sitting here and I had my beak tight and looked as though I hadn’t made a sound.”
“I know,” said Billie Brownie.
“Then I sat very still, of course, and one of them said:
“‘Well, all I can see is that gray bird with the black cap.’
“Of course they meant they could see me, and I was the one making all the sounds like a cat.
“They finished playing after a time and began to dig in the garden, transplanting the lettuce and hoeing the beans and watering the vegetables.
“Then I began to make sounds like the different birds and they would turn to one another and say:
“‘What song is that? Whose voice was that? Do you know what bird that could have been?’
“And they’d look about and not see any of the other birds, for hardly any birds were around then, and I sat, looking so quiet and meek.
“And then I heard one of them say:
“‘I still don’t see any other creature but that gray bird.’
“I thought surely then that they knew I was fooling them, but I found out they didn’t know I could make sounds like a cat and sing like the other birds and sometimes like a mocking-bird, too.
“But they didn’t know. And they’ve all gone off now. And still they’re wondering where the cat could have been which they thought they heard, and where all the birds were they were unable to see.
“Ha, ha, ha, that is the greatest joke—to think I fooled them all.”
“Well, you’re a smart bird, there is no mistake about that,” said Billie Brownie, “and I can tell you I admire your smartness.”
“I fooled them, I fooled them,” chirped Mr. Catbird. “They didn’t know the catbird when they saw him, nor did they know him when they heard him at his little jokes!”