Good Mama Redstart now can hatch her nursery
Without a big stepchild to smother her chicks.
SHY
Old Deacon Rathburne’s tom-cat, is he—dead?
QUERCUS
What, Tom, that dabbled in gore the wee goldfinches?
[He nods shrewdly.]
Wild huckleberries are growing at his head!
That almost got you in the fix:
Old Deacon saw me do it, blabbed it,