"Water, my dear Doña Cristalina," cried the chicken; "please don't scald me! Mercy! Have compassion upon me!"
"Had you compassion upon me when I asked your help, perverse bird?" answered the Water, boiling with rage and flooding the chicken from head to foot, while the scullions left him without so much as a feather.
The cook then took Little Scarecrow and put him on the gridiron.
"Fire! brilliant Fire!" cried the unhappy bird, "you who are so powerful and so resplendent, take pity upon my situation, repress your ardor, quench your flames, and do not burn me."
"You impudent rogue!" responded the Fire, "how can you have the courage to appeal to me, after having stifled me, because you thought, as you said, that you would never need me? Come here and you shall see something fine."
And, in fact, not content with browning the chicken, the fire burned him until he was as black as a coal. When the cook saw the chicken in this condition he took him by the foot and threw him out of the window. Then the Wind took possession of him.
"Wind," cried Little Scarecrow, "my dear, my venerated Wind, you who rule over everything, and who obey no one, powerful among the powerful, have compassion upon me; leave me at rest on this heap."
"Leave you!" roared the Wind, seizing him in a gust and whirling him about in the air like a top. "Never!"
The Wind deposited Little Scarecrow on the top of a belfry. St. Peter extended his hand and fastened him firmly to it. From that time to this he has remained there, black, thin, and bare, beaten by the rain and pushed about by the Wind, whose sport he forever is. He is no longer called Little Scarecrow, but Weather-Cock; but there he is, expiating his errors and his sins, his disobedience, his pride, and his perversity.