“It was horns.”
“Is that all?” demanded Nibble Rabbit.
“All?” echoed Chirp Sparrow, cocking his head on one side. “Isn’t that enough?” But he was really very much flattered. For Nibble’s ears had stood straight up right through his story, and all the other sparrows on the haystack were saying, “Hush, hush!” so he would go on again.
“My beak!” Chirp exclaimed. “I’ve told you how winter came to be, because the sun and the wind and the rain didn’t behave while Mother Nature left this half of the earth to go down and start the other half. I’ve told you how the good stupid cows starved because the plants wouldn’t be eaten, and how the bad clever wolves took to eating the cows. And how Mother Nature gave them horns that were longer and sharper than the tooth of any wolf to make it up to them. What more do you want to know?”
“Lots of things,” insisted Nibble. “Why did that cow shout ‘Wolf’! at Silvertip?”
“Because she’s a cow. Too good and stupid to know the difference! Wolf, fox, or dog, it’s all the same family, only the fox is smaller, and cleverer—and wickeder—and the dog is the cleverest of all. But the cows didn’t make much use of their horns after they did get them, because they are so stupid.
“They say Mother Nature was sorrier over the wickedness of the wolves than over any of the rest because she trusted them more than most,” he went on. “You see, they were her own beasts, not like the weasel who came up from under the earth and was wicked from the very first.”
“Were lots of others bad, too?” demanded Nibble. “Bad things are always interesting, you know.
“Oh, yes. Even some of the birds.” Chirp said this as though it were the most wicked thing in the world for a bird to be bad. “But we weren’t. We’ve always been as good as good, no matter how much trouble we have with the hawks and the owls. We eat some seeds, but not all, and the bugs. Bugs come from under the earth, you know, and the plants hate them. But we didn’t have to ask for horns or claws to take care of ourselves—that’s because we’re so clever.” And he spread his lively little wings, with brown edges to every feather, and squinted conceitedly at them over his shoulder.
“And the mice?” added Nibble. He didn’t want birds to have all the credit.