Good evening and welcome to Dreamtime Stories with Jackie.
Thank you so much for choosing me to be alongside you to read your special story for bedtime.
I'm so honored.
Tonight,
We're going to read another chapter in the exciting adventures of Bob White.
In chapter 14,
Which we read last time,
Farmer Brown's boy did a little arithmetic and found out just how many bugs and worms and caterpillars and weed seeds all the Bob White family ate in his garden to help him out.
So snuggle down in your bed and get ready for a wonderful sleep and we'll begin.
Chapter 15,
Farmer Brown's boy grows indignant.
To be indignant is to be angry in a good cause.
If you lose your temper and give way to anger because things do not suit you,
You are not indignant.
You are simply angry.
But if anger wells up in your heart because of harm or injustice which is done to someone else or even to yourself,
Then you become indignant.
Farmer Brown's boy had spent all his spare time down in the garden watching Bob White and his wonderful family.
In fact,
He had been there so much that all of the Bob Whites had come to look on him as harmless,
If not actually as a friend.
They just didn't pay him any attention at all but went about their business as if he were nowhere around.
And their business was getting rid of the garden bugs and worms and seeds of weeds in order to fill their stomachs.
What tickled Farmer Brown's boy was that the bugs and the worms of which they seemed the most fond of were the very ones which did the most harm to the growing plants.
Over beyond the garden was a field of wheat.
You know,
From wheat comes the flour of which your bread is made.
Now there is a certain little bug called the chintz bug which is such a hungry rascal that when he and a lot of his kind get together in a field of wheat,
They can spoil the whole crop.
They suck the juices from the plants so they wilt and die.
Farmer Brown's boy had heard his neighbors complaining that these bugs were really bad this year and he knew that they must be by the looks of the wheat on the farms of his neighbors.
But Farmer Brown's wheat looked as fine as wheat could look.
It was very plain that there were no chintz bugs here and he often wondered why when they were so bad in the surrounding fields of his neighbors.
Farmer Brown's boy noticed that Bob White and his family spent a great deal of time in the wheat field.
One day he noticed Bob picking something from a stem of wheat.
He went over to see what it might be.
Of course Bob scurried away but when Farmer Brown's boy looked at that wheat plant he found some cinch bugs on it and then he knew what Bob had been doing.
He had been picking off and eating those dreadful little bugs and he knew too why it was that their wheat field was the best for miles around.
It was because Bob White and his family hunted for those and ate those bugs as fast as they appeared.
Hooray for you!
You are the greatest little helpers a farmer ever had cried Farmer Brown's boy and he hurried off to tell Farmer Brown what he had found.
So the summer passed and the cool crisp days of autumn came.
The wheat had been harvested and the vegetables had been gathered and stored away.
Jack Frost had begun to paint the maple trees red and yellow.
The garden was bare and the stubble in the wheat field was a golden brown.
The little feathered people who do not like cold weather had flown away to the sunny Southland led by old Mr.
Buzzard.
Striped Chipmunk,
Chatterer the Red Squirrel and Happy Jack the Gray Squirrel were busy from morning until night storing away seeds and nuts on which to live through the long cold winter.
These were glorious days and Bob White loved every one of them.
Son,
Said Farmer Brown one morning,
Those Bob Whites must be fat with the good living that they had.
Seeing that we have fed them off of the farm all summer,
Don't you think that it is their turn to feed us?
I think a broiled up Bob White on toast would be pretty tasty.
The shooting season begins next week,
So I suppose you will get out your gun and shoot a few of those Bob Whites for us.
There was a twinkle,
A kindly twinkle in his eyes as he spoke,
But Farmer Brown's boy did not see that twinkle.
His face grew red and a hot anger filled his heart.
He was indignant.
He was very indignant to think that his father should ever hint at such a thing,
But he didn't forget to be respectful.
No sir,
He said,
I wouldn't shoot one of them for anything in the world.
They don't owe us anything.
We owe them.
If it hadn't been for them,
We wouldn't have had half a crop of wheat,
And our garden would have been just as poor as those of our neighbors.
I'm not going to shoot any one of them,
And I am not going to let anyone else shoot them either if I can help it.
Wow,
That is wonderful.
That Farmer Brown's boy is going to take care of the Bob White family.
So snuggle down and have a great dream time tonight,
And come back soon for chapter 16.
This is Jackie.
Have a lovely sleep.
I'm sending you so many hugs.
Good night now.
