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.
VIII
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.