Part 7

“Let’s put him back into the nest, children,” said mamma. “His mother will know best what to do with him.”

So a ladder was got, and papa climbed up and put poor Tip-Top safely into the nest. The cat had shaken all the nonsense well out of him; he was a dreadfully humbled young robin.

The time came at last when all the other birds in the nest learned to fly, and fluttered and flew about everywhere; but poor melancholy Tip-Top was still confined to the nest with a broken wing. Finally, as it became evident that it would be long before he could fly, Jamie took him out of the nest, and made a nice little cage for him, and used to feed him every day, and he would hop about and seem tolerably contented; but it was evident that he would be a lame-winged robin all his days.

Jamie’s mother told him that Tip-Top’s history was an allegory.

“I don’t know what you mean, mamma,” said Jamie.

“When something in a bird’s life is like something in a boy’s life, or when a story is similar in its meaning to reality, we call it an allegory. Little boys, when they are about half grown up, sometimes do just as Tip-Top did. They are in a great hurry to get away from home into the great world; and then temptation comes, with bright eyes and smooth velvet paws, and promises them fun; and they go to bad places; they get to smoking, and then to drinking; and, finally, the bad habit gets them in its teeth and claws, and plays with them as a cat does with a mouse. They try to reform, just as your robin tried to get away from the cat; but their bad habits pounce on them and drag them back. And so, when the time comes that they want to begin life, they are miserable, broken-down creatures, like your broken-winged robin.

“So, Jamie, remember, and don’t try to be a man before your time, and let your parents judge for you while you are young; and never believe in any soft white Pussy, with golden eyes, that comes and wants to tempt you to come down and play with her. If a big boy offers to teach you to smoke a cigar, that is Pussy. If a boy wants you to go into a billiard-saloon, that is Pussy. If a boy wants you to learn to drink anything with spirit in it, however sweetened and disguised, remember Pussy is there. And Pussy’s claws are long, and Pussy’s teeth are strong; and if she gives you one shake in your youth, you will be like a broken-winged robin all your days.”

MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET.

MISS KATY-DID sat on the branch of a flowering azalea, in her best suit of fine green and silver, with wings of point-lace from Mother Nature’s finest web.

Miss Katy was in the very highest possible spirits, because her gallant cousin, Colonel Katy-did, had looked in to make her a morning visit. It was a fine morning, too, which goes for as much among the Katy-dids as among men and women. It was, in fact, a morning that Miss Katy thought must have been made on purpose for her to enjoy herself in. There had been a patter of rain the night before, which had kept the leaves awake talking to each other till nearly morning; but by dawn the small winds had blown brisk little puffs, and whisked the heavens clear and bright with their tiny wings, as you have seen Susan clear away the cobwebs in your mamma’s parlour; and so now there were only left a thousand blinking, burning water-drops, hanging like convex mirrors at the end of each leaf, and Miss Katy admired herself in each one.

“Certainly I am a pretty creature,” she said to herself; and when the gallant colonel said something about being dazzled by her beauty, she only tossed her head and took it as quite a matter of course.

“The fact is, my dear colonel,” she said, “I am thinking of giving a party, and you must help me to make out the lists.”

“My dear, you make me the happiest of Katy-dids.”

“Now,” said Miss Katy-did, drawing an azalea-leaf towards her, “let us see—whom shall we have? The Fireflies, of course; everybody wants them, they are so brilliant,—a little unsteady, to be sure, but quite in the higher circles.”

“Yes, we must have the Fireflies,” echoed the colonel.

“Well, then, and the Butterflies and the Moths. Now, there’s a trouble. There’s such an everlasting tribe of those Moths; and if you invite dull people they’re always sure all to come, every one of them. Still, if you have the Butterflies, you can’t leave out the Moths.”

“Old Mrs. Moth has been laid up lately with a gastric fever, and that may keep two or three of the Misses Moth at home,” said the colonel.

“Whatever could give the old lady such a turn?” said Miss Katy. “I thought she never was sick.”

“I suspect it’s high living. I understand she and her family ate up a whole ermine cape last month, and it disagreed with them.”

“For my part, I can’t conceive how the Moths can live as they do,” said Miss Katy, with a face of disgust. “Why, I could no more eat worsted and fur, as they do—”

“That is quite evident from the fairy-like delicacy of your appearance,” said the colonel. “One can see that nothing so gross or material has ever entered into your system.”

“I’m sure,” said Miss Katy, “mamma says she don’t know what does keep me alive; half a dewdrop and a little bit of the nicest part of a rose-leaf, I assure you, often last me for a day. But we are forgetting our list. Let’s see—the Fireflies, Butterflies, Moths. The Bees must come, I suppose.”

“The Bees are a worthy family,” said the colonel.

“Worthy enough, but dreadfully humdrum,” said Miss Katy. “They never talk about anything but honey and housekeeping; still, they are a class of people one cannot neglect.”

“Well, then, there are the Bumble-Bees.”

“Oh, I dote on them! General Bumble is one of the most dashing, brilliant fellows of the day.”

“I think he is shockingly corpulent,” said Colonel Katy-did, not at all pleased to hear him praised; “don’t you?”

“I don’t know but he is a little stout,” said Miss Katy; “but so distinguished and elegant in his manners—something quite martial and breezy about him.”