“Only one robin left!� exclaimed the lady owl. “My claws! Who’d have thought we’d eat those birds all up in such a short time? You must have been at them while I was sleeping, you greedy thing! I’ve had hardly any of them.� She clattered her beak at the other owl so angrily that he moved away from her down the limb.
“You’ve had as many as I have,� he whimpered. “Can’t we show Killer the stump where the mice live? They’d be easy to carry, and he’d kill any amount of them.�
“Fine!� she agreed. “We’ll need them. There’s going to be a storm.�
“Well, we might just as well eat this robin then,� argued her piggy little mate, “and then we can clean out the hole and leave it all ready to store the mice in.�
Killer listened while the owl tugged and grunted, getting the bird out of his narrow pantry door. Suddenly he called: “I’ll trouble you for that robin. It’s mine, and I want it myself!�
Plunk! Down fell the bird, ’most on top of the wide burdock leaf where Killer was hiding from them. But that wasn’t on purpose. The little he-owl never meant to let it fall—he just jumped so hard from fright that he dropped it.
My, but his wife wanted to peck him! She didn’t dare, for fear Killer would see how angry she was about losing it. She gave her husband a horrid glare with her scary, starey eyes, and then she said in her politest voice: “Certainly, Mr. Weasel, you’re welcome to anything we have.�
“But I don’t see how you come to have it,� said Killer rudely.
“Owl custom, owl custom, my dear sir,� said she, preening herself so her feathers wouldn’t ruffle and show how scared she was. “We pick up the odds and ends you clever hunters don’t care about, and store them up here in our hole. You can see it from where you are, and I’m sure I hope you’ll help yourself whenever you feel like it.� All this time she was saying to herself: “That’s the last thing we’ll hide in this hole, now he knows where it is.� Wasn’t she deceitful?
“You’re very kind, I’m sure,� he answered more politely. “But I’ve hurt my paw so I can’t climb.� He said that because he hoped the owls would go on roosting there so he could come and catch them in the daytime if he wanted to.