He looked at the stick and wondered if his master was going to throw it for him to chase; but no, indeed, Peter would run no such risk of losing the wand.
"Besides," he thought, and the thought made him laugh, "if Pat should pick up this stick, he might float up into the sky and live with the dog-star forever, for he wouldn't know enough to ask to come down."
It made Pat so happy to hear his master laugh that he frolicked about as if he had never heard an unkind word in his life.
Peter even began humming a tune as he walked along, still twirling the stick. The forest bordered the road, and his eye caught sight of a handsome red-winged blackbird swinging on a bough. His eyes gleamed. It was such a beauty. He hurriedly picked up a stone.
"Hit the mark, Stone," he ordered gaily, and threw it with sure aim. In a minute he would have those wings to stick in his cap.
He ran forward toward the tree, when a wonderful thing happened. That little stone turned around in the air, and flying back at Peter struck him on the cheek with such a smart blow that a tiny trickle of blood ran down.
"Who did that? Who did that?" cried Peter, thinking at once of Lawrence and looking all around. He struck at Pat, but the dog avoided the blow.
The bird flew swiftly away, singing, "Foolish Peter, Foolish Peter," as he went.
It astonished the boy to understand the bird's song, but he was still so busy hunting for Lawrence, dodging behind some tree, that he did not pay much attention to it. Everything that happened to him lately was strange.
He walked along the road, his hand to his cheek. After awhile he came to the village square where the horse pond was. Many children he knew were there, and among them Lawrence.