The cat stretched herself and sprang from the roof to the fig tree and sharpened her claws on its bark.
The birds began to sing, and still there was no sound from the tiny gray adobe house under the fig tree.
The little white hen tiptoed round to the [p 7] front of the hut and peeped in at the open door. There in one corner of their one room lay Tonio and Tita and their father and mother, all sound asleep.
The little white hen must have told the red rooster what she saw, for he followed her and looked into the hut too. Then he ruffled his neck feathers, flapped his wings, and crowed so loudly that Pancho and Doña Teresa and the Twins all woke at once and sat up with a bounce, to see what was the matter.
It startled the little white hen to see them all sit up suddenly in a row, so she squawked and scrambled out through the open door as fast as she could go.
The red rooster ran too, and the two of them never stopped until they disappeared behind the bee-hives in the garden.
II
The moment she was really awake, Doña Teresa began to talk.
