Teedla Toodlum was listening, and heard rather more than was pleasant to hear. She looked through the bramble-bush, and saw them. Some had their heads thrown back, laughing; some were holding on to their sides, each with one claw; and some were stretching their necks forward, trying to make the deaf one understand, while the deaf one held her claw to her ear in order to hear the better.
“Ah, I feel ashamed!” said Teedla Toodlum to herself. “I see now that one should never speak of the speckled feathers one sees in others, since one can never be sure that one has not speckled feathers one’s self.”
“Why, that’s the way our cow does!” cried the Jimmyjohns as soon as Mr. Tompkins had finished.
“What! talks about speckled feathers?” asked cousin Floy.
“No: lets hens stay on her back.”
“Her parents, or grandparents, or great-grandparents, then,” said Mr. Tompkins, “probably came from Chickskumeatyourkornio.”
FLOWERS WAKING UP.
“It must be that spring has come,” said the Pansy, “or I should never feel so uneasy, and so very wide-awake. I’ve a great mind to put my head up out of the ground, and see. Hark! Yes, there are the birds. They are calling to the flowers. ‘Awake!’ they say, ‘awake, and come forth! There’s nothing to be afraid of now; for Old Winter has gone away. He can’t hurt you any more. Violet! Snowdrop! Pansy! Don’t stay down there any longer. We little birds are lonesome without you.’ Yes, birds, we are coming, and that right soon; for it is quite time the spring work was a-doing; and as old Goody Grass says, if some of us do not spring up, there will be no spring at all.