That Meddlesome Bird
By Annette Christine Brown
Annotations by Catherine Bowlin
––1–– THERE’S a little bird that comes when the weather gets warm, ‘Long ‘bout the time the corn rows seem so long; If you stop to rest a minute he begins to scream and storm And he sings an awful tantalizing song. He cocks his head and looks at you in such a sassy way, “La-zee-ness will ki-i-ill yer!” is what he seems to say. [1] ––2–– I wouldn’t mind his singing, if he wouldn’t sing that song. For I know it’s jest to be a-teasing me Why some days I’m up at sunrise working steady all day long, And a-hustling jest as long as I can see. [2] An’ ‘at meddl’some lil’ o’ bird he sets a-swinging on a limb, “La-zee-ness will ki-i-ill yer!” is all I get from him. ––3–– I woke up soon one morning before time to start the day, And thought I’d lie awake awhile in bed. I soon went off to sleep again but didn’t go to stay, For that meddler woke me screaming overhead. He was looking in my window from his perch upon a tree, “La-zee-ness will ki-i-ill yer!” he was singing down to me. ––4–– Oh! I got so awful mad that I jumped up out of bed And grabbed my shoe and threw it in the tree. “I hope you’ll die of meddling, you old nuisance, you!” I said, But he dodged my shoe and shook his head at me. He looked like he was saying, “Gonna lie in bed all day? “La-zee-ness will ki-i-ill yer!” he sang and flew away.
Brown, Annette Christine. “That Meddlesome Bird.” The Brownies’ Book, ed. W. E. B. Du Bois, vol. 1, no. 5, New York, N.Y.: DuBois and Dill, May 1920. 137. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/22001351/>.
[1] The author both mocks a bird’s song and anthropomorphizes the bird.
[2] Though this seems to be an innocent and light-hearted children’s poem, Brown prioritizes the issue of labor as well.
Contexts
Typically, the anthropomorphization of animals effectively builds emotional connections between people and animals – specifically between children and animals. For more information, see Karen Kilcup’s discussion of anthropomorphism and affection for animals in Stronger, Truer, Bolder (full citation below). Yet in this text, the author anthropomorphizes the bird in order to ridicule herself for not working. This strategy introduces an interesting issue in an otherwise light-hearted poem: child labor.
Resources for Further Study
- Burke, Carolyn L. and Joby G. Copenhaver. “Animals as People in Children’s Literature.” NCTE Language Arts, 81, no. 3 (2004): 205-213. https://cdn.ncte.org/nctefiles/store/samplefiles/journals/la/la0813animals.pdf.
- Kilcup, Karen. Stronger, Truer, Bolder: American Children’s Writing, Nature, and the Environment. University of Georgia Press, 2021.
- Manacorda, Marco. 2006. “Child Labor and the Labor Supply of Other Household Members: Evidence from 1920 America.” American Economic Review, 96 (5): 1788-1801.
- Markowsky, Juliet Kellogg. “Why Anthropomorphism in Children’s Literature?” Elementary English 52, no. 4 (1975): 460-66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41592646.
- Moehling, Carolyn M. “Family structure, school attendance, and child labor in the American South in 1900 and 1910.” Explorations in Economic History, 41 (2004): 73-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2003.07.001.
Pedagogy
The Office of Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Initiatives released this guide for 9th and 10th grade students to work on with their families as they read particular texts from The Brownies’ Book. For each literary work, the Office of CLRI has included reading, writing, and critical thinking activities. Included in this guide is a section about “That Meddlesome Bird.”
