But Rusty said that it must be the smoke of a pine stump that she noticed.
“Farmer Green is burning some old stumps in the pasture,” he explained. “And I flew through a cloud of it.”
Just then he happened to notice a bit of something or other clinging to one of his tail feathers. And though his wife was looking straight at him, he flicked the tiny scrap upon the floor, without thinking what he was doing.
“There you go again!” Mrs. Rusty Wren cried. “Here I’ve just finished cleaning the house and you’re littering it all up! You don’t care how much work you make for me.” And she pounced upon the brownish bit, intending to pick it up and throw it out of the house.
Rusty had already decided that he had better go away from home for a little while, until things were pleasanter, when his wife suddenly faced about and fixed him with her glittering eyes.
“Ha!” she cried, holding up the scrap in her bill for him to see. “Tobacco!” she screamed. “And what, pray, have you to say to me now?”