On rainy days Pedrito would sit on a chair back and grumble and grumble for hours at a time. When the sun came out again he would begin to fly about screaming at the top of his voice with pleasure.
Pedrito, in short, was a very happy and a very fortunate creature. He was as free as a bird can be. At the same time he had his afternoon tea like rich people.
Now it happened that one week it rained every day and Pedrito sat indoors glum and disconsolate all the time, and saying the most bitter and unhappy things to himself. But at last one morning the sun came out bright and glorious. Pedrito could not contain himself: “Nice day, nice day, Pedrito!” “Nice papa, nice papa,” “Papa for Pedrito!” “Your paw, Pedrito!” So he went flitting about the yard, talking gayly to himself, to the hens, to everyone, including the beautiful, splendid sun itself. From a tree top he saw the river in the distance, a silvery, shining thread winding across the plain. And he flew off in that direction, flying, flying, flying, till he was quite tired and had to stop on a tree to rest.
Suddenly, on the ground far under him, Pedrito saw something shining through the trees, two bright green lights, as big as overgrown lightning bugs.
“Wonder what that is?” thought Pedrito to himself. “Nice papa! Papa for Pedrito. Wonder what that is? Good day, Pedrito! Your paw, Pedrito!...” And he chattered on, just talking nonsense, and mixing his words up so that you could scarcely have understood him. Meantime he was jumping down from branch to branch to get as close as possible to the two bright gleaming lights. At last he saw that they were the eyes of a jaguar, who was crouching low on the ground and staring up at him intently.
But who could be afraid of anything on a nice day like that? Not Pedrito, at any rate. “Good day, jaguar!” said he. “Nice papa! Papa for Pedrito! Your paw, Pedrito!”
The jaguar tried to make his voice as gentle as he could; but it was with a growl that he answered: “GOOD DAY, POLL-PARROT!”
“Good day, good day, jaguar! Papa, papa, papa for Pedrito! Nice papa!”
You see, it was getting on toward four o’clock in the afternoon; and all this talk about “papa” was intended to remind the jaguar that it was tea-time. Pedrito had forgotten that jaguars don’t serve tea, nor bread-and-milk, as a rule.
“Nice tea, nice papa! Papa for Pedrito! Won’t you have tea with me today, jaguar?”