“I’ll say I does,” answered the robin, who used very bad grammar. “I knows more about ’em than I wants to. The nasty little scalawags! These wild men get most all the seeds hereabouts and it’s all an honest bird can do to scratch out a bare living.”
“Could you guide us for a few days?” put in the General.
“Gracious!” tittered the bird, “you’d never reach the wild men’s place in a few days with all those wagons and mice. They live on an island. You’ll have to have a boat or somethin’ to carry you over the water.”
“I have heard that they live on an island,” said the General, “but I mean could you show us the way to the water where we would be nearest to the island?”
“Of course I could,” answered the bird; “that is, providin’ it would be worth my time.”
“We will pay you,” said the General. “We’ll give you six sunflower seeds for your work.”
“Make it six and a half seeds and I’ll do it,” cried the bird.
The General agreed and the bird hopped along ahead of the army, jumping onto a bush occasionally to point out the best path. After a couple of hours’ march, the army came out onto a sandy beach, where the General called a halt.
“This is the place and over there is the island,” cried the bird, nodding his head towards the water.