III

The next morning, as soon as Mr. Bean had left the house, Jinx, the cat, who had been pretending to be asleep under the stove, jumped up on the table and got a pencil and a piece of paper, and carried them out and laid them down under the big elm-tree beside the barn. Then he looked up among the branches, and pretty soon he saw a bright little eye peeping out at him from behind a limb.

“Good-morning, robin,” he said politely. “I wonder if you’d do me a little favour? We animals are going to migrate this fall, but as none of us have ever been south before, we don’t know the way, and I thought perhaps you’d be willing to draw us a little map.”

The robin hopped a little way along the branch and cocked his head and looked down at Jinx with his right eye. “I don’t know what made you think that,” he said. “I don’t know why I should do anything for you. You’re always chasing me, and there’s never a minute’s peace for me or my family when you’re in the barn-yard, and you ate up my wife’s third cousin last June. But I suppose you’ve forgotten all about that.”

“I certainly haven’t,” said Jinx. “It was a most regrettable incident, and I was really terribly upset about it. I had no idea that robin was any relative of your wife’s, and when I saw him prowling around your nest, I thought he wanted to steal your children, and of course I didn’t stop to make inquiries then. Afterwards, when I found out what a mistake I had made, I would have done anything to restore him to you. But of course it was too late.”

“Rather late,” said the robin dryly, “since there was nothing left of him but a few tail feathers.”

“Well, let’s not rake up old scores,” said Jinx. “What’s done is done, as the saying goes. And if you’ll make this map for me, I’ll promise never to chase you or any of your family again.”

“Well, that’s fair enough,” said the robin. And he flew down, and picking up the pencil in his claw, began to draw the map that would show them exactly how to get to Florida.

Meanwhile all the other animals who were going were packing up and making their farewell calls on those who were to stay at home. For they had heard Mr. Bean say that he was going to drive into town the next morning, and they thought that would be the best time for them to start on their journey, because he wouldn’t get back until late in the afternoon, and by that time they would be many miles away.

Nearly everybody in the barn-yard was happy but Charles the rooster. He sat alone in the darkest corner of the hen house, his tail feathers drooping miserably. For his wife, Henrietta, had positively refused to let him go.

“Go south in the winter, would you?” she had said. “Never in my life have I heard such a pack of nonsensical notions! What right have you to go traipsing off over the country—you, with a wife and children to look after? Not that you ever do look after them. Who’s going to get Mr. Bean up in the morning, I should like to know?”

“He can wake himself up,” said Charles. “He doesn’t have to get up so early in the winter-time anyway.”

“Well, you’re not going—that’s flat!” said his wife. And that settled it. When Henrietta put her foot down, there was nothing more to be said.

Some of the animals, too, had held the opinion that the cat ought not to go either, since it was his duty to keep the mice out of the barn where the grain and vegetables were stored. But that was easily arranged, for some of the mice wanted to go, and so Jinx promised that he would let them alone if the mice that stayed home would keep away from the barn while he was gone. This pleased the other animals, for although Jinx was a wild fellow, rather careless of appearances and a bit too free in his speech, they all felt that he would be a good animal to have with them in a pinch, and no one knew what dangers might lie in wait for them on the road to Florida.

Indeed, a number of the more timid animals who had been carried away by enthusiasm at the meeting in the cow barn had not felt so anxious to go when they had thought it all over. All the sheep had backed out, and most of the mice, and all of the pigs except Freddy. The pigs were not afraid; they were just awfully lazy, and the thought of walking perhaps twenty miles a day for goodness knew how many days was too much for them.

At last the great day came. Mr. Bean harnessed up William to the buggy early in the morning, and drove off to town, and then all the animals gathered in the barn-yard. From the window of the hen house Charles watched them unhappily. They were all so merry and excited, and the pigs had come up to see Freddy off and were all talking at once and giving him a great deal more advice than he could possibly remember, and Hank, the old, white horse, was continually running back into the barn for another mouthful of oats, because he didn’t know when he should get any good oats again, and Alice and Emma, the two white ducks, had waddled off down to the end of the pasture to take one last look at the old familiar duck pond, which they wouldn’t see again until next spring. It made Charles very sad.

“Why don’t you go out and say good-bye to them, Charles?” asked Henrietta. It made her feel bad to see him so unhappy, for she really had a kind heart, and way down inside of it she was very fond of him. But he was so careless and forgetful that she often had to be quite cross to him.

“No,” said Charles mournfully. “No. I shall stay here. They’ve forgotten all about me. They don’t care because I can’t go with them. They don’t remember who it was that gave them the idea in the first place. No, let them go. Heartless creatures! What do I care?”

“Nonsense!” said Henrietta. “Go along out.” And so Charles ruffled up his feathers and held his head up in the air and marched out into the yard.

All the good-byes had been said and the travellers were ready to start. The barn-yard was silent as they formed in a line and marched out through the gate into the road that stretched away like a long, white ribbon to far distant Florida. First came Jinx, with his tail held straight up in the air like a drum-major’s stick. Then came Freddy, the pig, and the dog, Robert, who was Jock’s younger brother. After them marched Hank and Mrs. Wiggins, and the procession was brought up by the two white ducks, Alice and Emma, who were sisters. The mice—Eek, Quik, Eeny, and Cousin Augustus, ran along the side of the road so as not to be stepped on.

The stay-at-homes crowded out to the gate, waving paws and hoofs, and calling: “Good-bye! Good-bye! Don’t forget to write! Have a good time and remember us to Florida!”

Overhead a flock of swallows darted and turned on swift wings. “Good-bye!” they twittered. “We’ll see you in a week or two. We start south in about ten days ourselves.”

Charles stood on the gate-post and watched the little procession march off down the road. Smaller and smaller it grew, and then it went over a hill, and the white road was empty again. But long after it had gone Charles sat on. And his tail feathers drooped, and his head dropped down on his chest, and a great tear splashed on the gatepost. But luckily no one saw him cry, for the animals had all gone back to their daily tasks.

At least that was what he thought. But Henrietta saw him from the window of the hen house.