Apparently the other boys were also looking around them, for presently Step Hen, pointing with his finger, said:
“What are those birds away up there, Thad?”
“The ones up in the clouds, you mean, I suppose?” asked the other.
“Yes,” replied Step Hen.
“That is the majestic eagle, my son,” said Giraffe, pompously.
“Majestic humbug,” laughed Allan.
“But they represent the American nation,” objected Giraffe, “every time the papers get talkin’ about trouble with foreign nations they say ‘now listen to the eagle scream’ don’t they?”
“Oh! it can scream, all right, and fight right hard, I admit, when it has to,” Allan went on to say, “but all this talk about the eagle being such a noble bird makes me weary. If you’d watched him as often as I have, sitting lazily on the limb of a dead tree, and waiting till some poor, industrious fish hawk makes a haul, so he could rob him, you wouldn’t have quite so much respect for the magnificent bird as you do now.”
“Huh! p’raps not,” grunted Giraffe, looking crestfallen. “Honest to goodness now, I always did think the old feller couldn’t live up to his reputation. Guess America had ought to hunt up another emblem besides the eagle.”
“But say, them others ain’t eagles, I know,” spoke up Step Hen.