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"W HO will be the first one up in the morning?"
This is what Father asked Bobby every night at bedtime.
"I shall. You'll see if I'm not," said Bobby.
"I shall. You'll see," said Father; and it was a race between the two of them. Sometimes Father beat and sometimes Bobby.
Bobby might beat Father up in the morning, but try as he would he could not get ahead of the birds. No matter when he waked up, they were always twittering and chirping and singing as if they had been awake for hours and hours.
Bobby slept in a little white bed close by a window. One night he dreamed that a bird came and sat on the window sill and said:
"Lazy boy! Lazy boy! Why aren't you up?"
"But I am not a lazy boy," said Bobby in his dream.
"I help my mother every day and I get up almost as early as you do."
"Then what are you doing in bed now?" asked the saucy bird, cocking its head on the side, and bursting into such a loud song that Bobby nearly jumped out of bed.
He gave such a start that he waked himself and the very first thing he heard as he opened his eyes was a bird singing, and singing, and singing in a tree near by.
Bobby had never heard a bird sing like this one before. It was just as if all the other birds had given their songs to one bird to make into a new song.
Bobby thought it must be time for him to get up. He listened to hear if Father were stirring; but there wasn't a sound in the house.
"I'll beat my father up
There was scarcely enough light in the room for Bobby to see where his clothes were; and when he found them he was almost too sleepy to put them on.
He was trying his best to button his blouse when Mother called from her door:
"What in the world is my little boy doing up by himself in the middle of the night?"
"Why it's morning," said Bobby. "Don't you hear the bird singing?"
Then how Mother and Father did laugh! They thought it
was a great joke for their little boy to think it was
morning because a