# The Way of the Wild (Hawkes)/What Puzzled the Robins

One spring when Cock Robin and My Lady came north they decided that they would seek an entirely new nesting place. They had been having rather poor luck with their babies for several years so they thought they would find a new place for the house.
For the past three years they had built in an apple tree in a farmer's dooryard. This had been a fine place for the nest and they had enjoyed the farmer and his wife. The children were also very friendly, but there were other drawbacks. The farmer kept a lot of cats. So each time they knocked the new brood out of the nest they were sure to lose some of the fledglings.
The starlings also troubled them. The grackles were likewise not on good terms with the robin family. But worst of all a villainous black crow had found the nest one morning ​very early, before the farmer was up, and had robbed it of every small bird. If the farmer had been up he would have spoken to Mr. Crow with his bangstick, but the crow was too early for the farmer and the murder had gone unpunished.
So for all these reasons the robins decided to seek a new home. They prospected about for a long time. Finding a really fine place for a nest is a task that takes patience. So many things have to be considered. They investigated orchards and barns and many other outbuildings before they finally made a decision. The place that they finally decided upon pleased them both exceedingly, but what it was or what it was used for they did not know.
It was not far from a railroad depot, the terminal of a small country line. There was only one train a day and that went to the city in the morning and returned at night.
There were a lot of iron beams and cross-beams and the place was rather dark and secluded. Cock Robin felt sure that cats never ​came there. They discovered this spot about nine o'clock in the morning; the train had gone to the city two hours before and the yard was quiet. In fact it was nearly always quiet, except at morning and evening. They had wasted so much time searching that they went to work diligently and by night they had the nest partly built. Mud and straw had been plenty and they had never before made such progress. They roosted in a tree near by that night feeling very happy over the day's work.
You can well imagine their astonishment and disgust on the following morning to find the nest gone. They did not go to see it until after the train had gone and the yard was quiet. The beam where they had placed it was there but no nest. Neither were there any signs of their labors. When a nest is blown down there is usually some mud left clinging to the place, but this beam was quite clean. They were much puzzled, but set to work again with a will. The birds and the wild creatures have a patience that puts to shame the best efforts of man. If they do not succeed at first they try ​again. So they worked very hard all day and by night had the nest half done again.
Cock Robin was the first to investigate the nest on the following morning and he hastened to report to My Lady. The new nest that they had worked on the day before was gone, but the old one was back. He could tell it because it was shaped slightly differently. They had also used more straw in it. My Lady laughed at him, but he stuck to it that it was the nest they had worked on two days before.
"Well," said My Lady, "I am just as well suited with this one. Let's finish it." So they went to work, and by night it was nearly completed. It only needed a few finishing touches and some shaping which My Lady always did herself. The robins went to roost that night feeling, very jubilant. Cock Robin prolonged his evening song on account of the nearly finished nest.
When he flew to the nest in the morning with his beak full of straw, he dropped the straw at the first sight of the nest and flew away to tell his wife.
​The nest which had been so nearly completed was gone, and the half built nest was back in its place. They were much troubled and flew back and forth "quitting" and "quitting." Some one was playing them a mean trick. But Mrs. Robin finally persuaded her husband that this nest was almost as good as the other and if they hurried they might even finish it that day. So they worked with a will and by night it was done.
It was a very happy pair of robins that went to roost that night. On the morrow there would be a blue robin's egg in the nest.
Mrs. Robin was the first to inspect the nest in the morning. In fact she went to lay the first egg of the set. But she soon came flying to Cock Robin with strange news. The completed nest was gone and in its place was the nearly completed one.
But Cock Robin could not explain it. He could only "quit" and fly about.
But finally he and Mrs. Robin together finished the nest in the forenoon and in the afternoon Mrs. Robin laid the first egg. This ​egg was very large for a robin's egg, and of a heavenly blue, and she was quite proud of it.
As soon as the train had gone on the following morning she flew to the nest. She would lay another egg that day. She was very happy.
You can perhaps imagine her astonishment to And that the nest with the egg in it was not there, but the other nest that they had finished two days before was back and there was of course no egg in it.
Although Mrs. Robin was astonished beyond bird expression, yet she set to work to repair the damage by laying a second egg. But this egg was not so large, and not quite so deep a blue as the other.
Cock Robin himself went to inspect the nest on the following morning. To tell the truth this sudden disappearance of the nests was getting on his nerves. He came back with a strange report. The nest containing the large blue egg was back, but the other nest was gone.
"Well," said My Lady, "I don't like it, ​but as long as we have a nest with one egg in it, let's be satisfied."
"But," said Cock Robin, "we have got two nests and each one has an egg in it."
But Mrs. Robin was so interested laying her eggs that she did not trouble her head about it, but laid a second egg in the nest with the small egg.
But wonder of wonders, on the morrow, the nest with two eggs in it was gone and the nest with the large egg in it was back. This really alarmed Cock Robin. But Mrs. Robin laid another egg beside the large egg and they had two nests with two eggs in each.
That night after Mrs. Robin was asleep on the roost, for she had been so disturbed that she had not dared to stay on the nest, brave Cock Robin decided he would guard the nest and find out what it was that stole the home away each day, so he sat upon the eggs all night.
In the morning the train came in, made up as usual, and went away to the city. But it had barely left the station when a very excited ​Cock Robin flew away to find Mrs. Robin and tell her the wonderful story. It had been a terrible ordeal for the brave little bird, but he had solved the mystery. He knew where their extra nest went each day.
Cock Robin had been very comfortable on the nest all night and he had begun to think that it was not going to leave them that day when they started to make up the train in the yard. But presently the Great Thunderer, as the robins called the locomotive, was detached from the train and came roaring and hissing along the shiny rails toward the place where poor little Cock Robin was sitting on his nest. He was terribly frightened and was about to fly away when it passed above him, and he could not fly out, or he was too scared to.
Then there was the talk of the men above and the beams, the cross-beams, and Cock Robin and his nest began slowly moving. They swung around further and further and then finally stood still. Then the Great Thunderer rolled away snorting and thundering.
Cock Robin, frightened nearly to death, flew ​out from under the turntable and went to tell his wife.
The trainmen saw him go and soon discovered the nest. They also found the second nest at the other end of the turntable.
"Plucky little fellows, aren't they?" said one man. "Let's watch them and see how they make it go. It must seem strange to them to have their two houses shifted about each day."
In a very few seconds both robins came back and Cock Robin proudly showed his wife the second nest only twenty feet away and quite as secure as its fellow.
But My Lady was very much disturbed, and not much elated over her mate's discovery.
"I can't sit on the eggs in both nests at once. What can I do? Half of the eggs will spoil."
"Well, we will see," said her mate, who was fco tickled with himself for being so clever that he did not worry about the second nest. But he did get excited when his mate announced her plan. In fact, he was very angry at the suggestion.
​"You have got to sit on the eggs in the second nest. That is the only way," announced Mrs. Robin. "I am not going to lay eggs for nothing."
Cock Robin protested that he would spoil his plumage and also made many other excuses, but his wife had her own way (just as the ladies usually do). So poor Cock Robin sat on the extra eggs and they hatched two broods of young robins.
The trainmen watched them all through the process. They were so impressed with their pluck that they helped feed the young birds and that gave their parents a great help.
Finally when it was time for the two broods to be shoved out of the nest, the trainmen picked them up under the turntable and placed them in trees near by, so that all survived.
But when Cock Robin proposed that they raise another brood on one nest this time, My Lady struck. She said that two broods were enough for that year and that she wasn't going to live under the Great Thunderer any longer. So they took their double family to a near​by orchard and spent a very pleasant summer.
This is a strange romance in birdland, but the trainmen who gave me the main incident say that "it is true," and I give it to you just as I received it.