Well, some one did. Before Mr. Crow knew what had happened, a voice said—right over his shoulder:
"You don't mind, I hope?"
It was Fatty Coon! And Mr. Crow certainly did mind—though he didn't dare say so. In the first place, Mr. Crow was afraid of Fatty Coon. And in the second place, Fatty was so big that he crowded Mr. Crow almost off the fence.
Old Mr. Crow found it very hard to hold the umbrella straight and cling to the fence-rail at the same time. And something seemed to have made the umbrella very heavy. In spite of all he could do, it would tilt. And Mr. Crow crouched under the edge of it, right where the rain poured off. The water dripped inside his collar and ran down his back until he was soaked through and through.
Pretty soon Mr. Crow began to sneeze. At first he sneezed quite softly. But every time it happened he sneezed harder than the time before. And at last he sneezed so violently that he lost his hold on the fence and went tumbling down to the ground, with the umbrella, Jasper Jay, Fatty Coon and Frisky Squirrel on top of him.
As they fell, a huge, long-legged fellow named Christopher Crane alighted on the fence, on the very spot where they had been sitting, and laughed loudly at them.
"What's the joke?" Mr. Crow asked in an angry voice, as he picked himself up. "I don't see anything to laugh at."
"Joke?" said Christopher Crane. "The joke's on me. I thought that thing you have in your hand was a new kind of toadstool, growing on the fence. And here I've been sitting on it all this time and never knew you chaps were under it!"
At that, everybody except Mr. Crow began to laugh, too. But Mr. Crow coughed; and his voice was hoarser than, ever as he said to Christopher Crane:
"I'm wet as I can be. And I've caught a terrible cold. You're a water-bird; and you don't mind a wetting. But for one of my age it's very dangerous."