Chapter 11 | The Little Warbler | Featherland

“Sky-high, sky-high, twitter-twitter, sky-high-higher-higher,” sang the lark, and he fluttered and circled round and round, making the air about him echo again and again with the merry song he was singing—a song so sweet, so bright and sparkling, that the birds of Greenlawn stopped to listen to the little brown fellow with the long spurs and top-knot, whistling away “sweet and clear, sweet and clear,” till he rose so high that the sounds came faintly, and nothing could be seen of him but a little black speck high up against the edge of the white flecky cloud; and still the sweet song came trilling down so soft and clear, that the birds clapped their wings and cried “Bravo!” while the jackdaw said he would take lessons from the lark in that style of singing, for he thought it would suit his voice, and then he was quite offended when the thrush laughed, but begged pardon for being so rude. And then, while the birds were watching the lark, he began to descend; slowly, and by jerks, every time sending forth spurts from the fountain of song that gushed from his little warbling throat; and then down, lower and lower still, singing till he was near the ground, when, with one long, clear, prolonged note, he darted down, falling like a stone till close to the grass, when he skimmed along for some distance, and then alighted in a little tussock of grass that stood by itself in the field, which came close up to Greenlawn, and ran right down to the farther edge of the pond. And what was there in the tussock of grass but a tiny cup-like nest in the ground, lined with dry grass, and covered snugly over by the lark’s little brown wife, who was keeping the little ones warm, while her husband had been up almost out of sight in the bright sunny air singing her one of his sweetest songs,—a song so sweet that the birds had all stayed from their work to listen.

And this is what he sang—the song that made his little mate’s black beady eyes twinkle and shine as she sat in the tussock; for she felt so proud to think how her mate could warble:—

“Low down, low down, sitting in the tussock brown,

Little mate, the sky is beaming; little mate, earth wears no frown.

Higher, higher; higher, higher; toward the cloudflecks nigher, nigher,

Round and round I circle, singing; higher, higher ever winging;

    Over meadow, over streamlet,

    Over glistening dew, and beamlet

    Flashing from the pearl-hung grasses,

    Where the sun in flashes passes;

    Over where sweet matey’s sitting;

    Ever warbling, fluttering, flitting;

    Praising, singing—singing, praising;

    Higher still my song I’m raising.

Sky-high, sky-high; higher—higher—higher—higher,

Little matey, watch your flier;

Sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet;

Here the merry breezes meet,

Where I twitter, circling higher,

Watch me flying higher, higher.

Low down, low down, nestling in the tussock brown,

Little mate, I’m coming down.”

“Well, that beats the owl hollow,” said Mr Specklems to his wife. “I think I could sing as well myself though, if it was not for this constant feeling of having a cold. There must have been a draught where I was hatched, and I’ve never recovered it. I can’t think how he manages to sing and fly too at the same time: I can’t. Why, I should be out of breath in no time.”

“There, don’t be a booby,” said his wife; “you are not a song-bird at all. I heard the crow say we were distant relations of his, and no one would for a moment think that he was a singer.”

“Hark at her now!” said Specklems, “not a singer; why, what does she call that?” And then the vain little bird whistled and sputtered and cizzled away till he was quite out of breath, when his wife laughed at him so merrily, but told him that she liked his whistle better than the finest trill the skylark ever made; and so then Specklems said that after all he thought the crow might be right, but, at all events, the Specklems could do something better than cry “Caw-waw” when they opened their beaks.

Just then who should come buzzing along but a wasp, a regular gorgeous fellow, all black and gold, and with such a thin waist that he looked almost cut in two.

“Now then, old spiketail,” said the starling, “keep your distance; none of your stinging tricks here, or I’ll cut that waist of yours in two with one snip.”

“Who wants to sting, old peck-path?” said the wasp. “It’s very hard one can’t go about one’s work without being always sneered and jeered and fleered at by every body.”

“Work,” said the starling, “ho-ho-ho, work; why, you don’t work; you’re always buzzing about, and idling; it’s only bees that work and make honey.”

“There now,” said the wasp, “that’s the way you people go on: you hear somebody say that the bees are industrious and we are idle, and then you believe it, and tell everybody else so, but you never take the trouble to see if it’s true; and so we poor wasps have to go through the world with a bad name, and people say we sting. Well, so we do if we are touched; and so do bees too, just as bad as we do, only the little gluttons make a lot of sweet honey and wax, and so they get all the praise.”

And then away went the little black-and-yellow fellow with his beautiful gauzy wings shining in the sun, and he flew over the garden wall, and was soon scooping away at a ripe golden-yellow plum that was hanging from the wall just ready to pick; and then off he flew again to his nest, where dozens more wasps were going in and out of the hole in a fallen willow-tree, all soft like touchwood, and in it the wasps had scooped out such a hole, where they had been working away quite as hard and industriously as the bees their cousins; and here they had made comb, and cells, and stored up food, and instead of their cells being made of wax, they were composed of beautiful paper that these busy little insects had made. There were grubs, too, and eggs that would turn to grubs, and afterwards to wasps; and here the wasps worked away, in and out all day, as busy as could be. But they had a very hard life of it, for everyone was trying to kill the poor things, and set traps for them to tumble into and be smothered in sweet stuff. But though people did not think so, the wasps did a great deal of good, and among other things they killed a great many tiresome little flies that were always buzzing and humming about; and the wasps went after them and caught them by the back, and then snipped off their wings and head, and flew off and ate the best parts of them up.