[The old gray goose holds a conversation with the black chicken.]
“And then will you tell us the perfectly dreadful thing that happened?” asked Van anxiously; while the others cried delightedly, “Oh, that will be fine!”
“Yes,” said Polly, with a reassuring nod over at him, “I will Vanny, tell it all. Well, so here is what they said. The old gray goose began it:
“‘Humph!’ she said, with a very knowing look; ‘you don’t know as much as you will in a short time—say in November.’
“Now, what November was, the chicken, of course, couldn’t tell, for he had never seen a November; so he asked the cross old goose very plainly, but very politely, one day, to tell him exactly what she did mean. This was the week before Thanksgiving; and it rained, and it was cold and dreary, and the two were perched on a rail, shivering with the cold. But what the old gray goose was saying made Shanghai shake and shiver worse than anything else, only he pretended that he wasn’t frightened a bit.
“Now, you must know that the old gray goose was very angry at the Shanghai chicken for coming there at all; and when she saw us all feed it, she got angrier and angrier, till she tried to say very bad things indeed to that poor little black chicken.”
“That was naughty,” little Dick burst out vehemently.
“Yes, she was very naughty indeed,” said Phronsie, shaking her head gravely.