He told her.
“Ah!” said Aunt Polly. “It’s
your mistake—and not mine. You ate
what was in your left-hand pocket, instead
of what was in the right-hand one. If you had
followed my instructions everything would have been
all right.”
Old Mr. Crow felt very much ashamed. There was
nothing he could say. So he slunk away and moped
for three days.
Though he did not know it, the trouble with his foot
was simply this: He had daubed so much tar on
his foot, in Farmer Green’s cornfield, that the
soft earth had stuck to it in a big ball.
Mr. Crow recovered his spirits at last. And neither
he nor Aunt Polly Woodchuck ever discovered that he
never had gout at all. He forgave her, at last,
for having cured his foot too quickly, for the affair
gave him something to talk about for a long time afterward.
He never tired of telling his friends about the trouble
he had had.
But many of the feathered folk in Pleasant Valley
grew very weary of the tale before they heard the
last of it.
THE NEW UMBRELLA
Old Mr. Crow was feeling very happy, because he had
a new umbrella—the only umbrella that was
owned for miles around. And wherever Mr. Crow
went, the umbrella went too, tucked snugly under his
wing.
There was only one thing that could have made Mr.
Crow feel any happier; and that was rain. As
soon as it rained he intended to spread the umbrella
over his head and go to call upon all of his friends.
But not a drop of rain had fallen for weeks.
And so far as old Mr. Crow could judge, there wasn’t
a single sign of a storm anywhere. Nevertheless,
he continued to carry his umbrella every time he stirred
away from his house. And although the weather
was so dry, he found a good deal of pleasure in showing
his umbrella to his neighbors.
Now, old Mr. Crow had a cousin of whom you have heard.
His name was Jasper Jay; and he was a great dandy.
He always took pride in his handsome blue suit, of
which he was very vain.
Being an inquisitive fellow, Jasper Jay was much interested
in Mr. Crow’s umbrella. Whenever he met
Mr. Crow he asked the old gentleman to spread the
umbrella; and once Mr. Crow had let Jasper hold it
for as long as ten seconds, “just to see how
it felt.”
After that Jasper Jay could not get the umbrella out
of his mind. He began calling at Mr. Crow’s
house every day; and all the time he was there he
never took his eyes off the umbrella.
At last the two cousins met in the woods one day.
As usual, Mr. Crow had his umbrella tucked under his
wing. But when Jasper asked him to spread it,
Mr. Crow refused.
“I can’t keep putting my umbrella up and
down,” he said. “If I did, the first
thing I knew it would be worn out; and then what would
happen to me if it should rain?”
“You’d get wet,” said Jasper Jay.
