They swarmed around Tita’s feet, pecking at each other and snatching greedily at each kernel as it fell.
“You all need to go to the priest for your [p 25] manners,” Tita said to them severely. “You behave like the pigs.”
She set the dish down on the ground, and when they all tried to get their heads into it at once, she picked out the legs of the red rooster and seized them with one hand, and those of the little white hen with the other, and before they could guess what in the world was happening to them she had them safely in the house, where she tied them to the legs of the table.
III
When Tita went back after the turkey, she found him eating the very last kernels of corn out of the dish. He had driven all the hens away and was having a very nice time by himself. Tita made a grab for his legs, but he was too quick for her. He flew up into the fig tree and from there to the roof. Tita looked up at him anxiously.
“Don’t you think you ought to get blessed?” she said. “Come down now, that’s a good old gobbler! Mother says [p 26] your temper is so bad you must surely go to the priest, and how can I take you if you won’t come down?”
“Gobble,” said the turkey, and stayed where he was.
[p 27]
Tita was in despair. She threw a stick at him, but he only walked up the thatched roof with his toes turned in, and sat down on the ridge-pole.
Just then Tita looked down the river path, and there was Tonio coming with the goat! At least he was trying to, but the goat didn’t seem to care any more about being blessed than the turkey did. She was standing with her four feet braced, pulling back with all her might, while Tonio pulled forward on the lasso which was looped over her horns.