Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/71

 awkward and helpless as only a young robin can be.

The croquet court is a bad place for a young bird. Anything moving on that stretch of grass is in plain view to many watchful eyes. The cellar doors, slanting up from the ground, overlook it and are the favourite sunning place for cats. And there lay Taffy Topaz, the big yellow Persian. He noticed that hopping bundle of feathers. His eyes got wide and bright and dangerous. His tail switched nervously from side to side. He crouched so that his shoulder blades humped up, and watched intently. Then he began to crawl silently across the lawn. Suddenly it seemed as though the garden was very still. In all that quietness of yellow sunshine there was only Pudgy Robin, blundering bravely into a strange big world, and the creeping enemy behind him.

Then in the treetops the bird policemen began to scream. Little happens on the ground that the bird policemen don't see, though they can't do much about it. "Look out, look out!" they called wildly. But Pudgy was too young, too excited, too ignorant, even to know what they were