"I promise not to put it up—unless it should rain."
Mr. Crow looked carefully at the sky. There was not a cloud to be seen. So he turned to Jasper Jay with a smile and placed the umbrella carefully in his hands.
Then Mr. Crow flew away.
"It certainly can't rain," he said to himself.
Mr. Crow arrived at the meeting quite out of breath. And his friends noticed that he seemed uneasy about something. He kept looking up at the sky and asking everybody what he thought about the weather.
IX
CAUGHT IN THE RAIN
Left alone in the woods with Mr. Crow's umbrella, Jasper Jay had a fine time. First he looked at the umbrella very closely, from the handle to the slender tip. Then he placed it under his wing and strutted back and forth upon the ground, just as he had seen Mr. Crow parade before his friends. And Jasper wished that someone would come along and see him.
But nobody came. So after a while he grew tired of wishing. And the next thing he did was to unfasten the strap that kept the folds of the umbrella wrapped about its stick.
"I'm not putting it up," he told himself. "I didn't promise I wouldn't do this. I only agreed not to spread the umbrella unless it rained."