Aunt Polly Woodchuck shook her head.
"That's not possible," she cried. "There aren't enough Cowbirds' eggs in Pleasant Valley to make anybody so fat as the Major is getting. Unless I'm mistaken, he's taking the eggs of a good many others besides Cowbirds."
Mr. Crow became greatly excited.
"Then he's a thief!" he squawked. "Major Monkey is an egg thief!" And he flapped away across the pasture in a fine rage, to tell everybody what Aunt Polly Woodchuck had said.
A little later in the day Major Monkey began to notice that a good many of his neighbors looked at him very coldly. The birds, especially, glared at him as if they were actually angry. And wherever he went they set up a loud twittering. Some of them even flew at his head and tried to peck him as they darted past.
At first he couldn't imagine what was the matter. But before the day was done Jasper Jay let him know what made the bird people angry.
"You're a sneak-thief!" Jasper told the Major bluntly. "We've found at last what makes you so fat. You've been stealing eggs from every nest in the woods!"
"Tut! Tut!" said Major Monkey. "When a lazy Cowbird lays an egg in somebody else's nest, the owner ought to be grateful to me for taking the egg out and eating it."
"It's not that," Jasper Jay replied. "The trouble is, you've taken all kinds of eggs."