“Well, now,” exclaimed Bumper, sitting back on his haunches, “this is getting interesting, and also quite serious. When all three of you have that strange feeling, I must confess there must be something in it. Now how do you feel, Yellow Breast? Can’t you describe the feeling?”
“Why, it’s nothing I can put in words,” the Chat answered hesitatingly. “It’s just a restless feeling that makes me nervous. I feel all the time as if there was danger brooding in the air.”
“Don’t you think it’s all your imagination?” asked Bumper. “I wouldn’t let it bother me any more.”
The fact was the three birds sitting on the limb were a little ashamed of their nameless fear, and Bumper’s remarks added to their confusion. Still they could not deny, it was quite a coincidence that all three should have experienced the same strange feeling.
Fuzzy Wuzz was more in sympathy with them than Bumper, for she sometimes had attacks of the nerves which made her afraid of everything, even of her own shadow.
“I think, Bumper,” she interrupted, “that there’s something in the air that upsets them. Don’t you smell something queer?”
For a moment Bumper sniffed the air, holding his nose far up and trying hard to distinguish any unusual odor or fragrance in it. “No, I can’t say that I do,” he replied slowly after a while. “Yes, maybe there is a little peculiar odor, but not enough to account for all this disturbance.”
From out of the leaves almost at their feet Mrs. Oven-Bird, who had been sitting on her nest, crept forth, and overhearing the remarks sniffed the air, and then exclaimed:
“I don’t like the looks of the sun. See how red it is. Now what does that mean?”
“The sun is always red, but sometimes more so than at others,” replied Bumper. “Yes, it is very red, but I’ve seen it that way at sunset.”