away his breath. He was furious. Again and again he strove to force his
way in, now on one side, now on the other. But always that fiery bunch
of beak and claw and feathers seemed to burst in his face. Had it not
been for the bars, indeed, the red hen would have given him an awful
mauling. But this, of course, he was too self-confident to suspect.
With characteristic obstinacy, he kept up the struggle for fully five
minutes, while the terrified chickens filled the air with their pipings
and the hen screamed herself hoarse. Then, feeling a little sore, to be
sure, but very certain that he had impressed the hen, he strolled off to
look for some delicacy less inaccessible than that piece of turnip.

"At this point the one-eyed gander came waddling up from the goose pond.
He was lonely and bad-tempered, for his two wives had been killed by a
fox that spring, and the Boy had not yet found him a new mate. Young
Grumpy looked at the big gray bird and recalled the little unpleasantness
of their previous encounter.

"'Oh, ho!' said he to himself--if woodchucks ever _do_ talk to
themselves--'I'll just give that ugly chap beans, like I did the other
day.' And he went scurrying across the yard to see about it.

"To his surprise, the gander paid him no attention whatever. You see, he
was on the side of the gander's blind eye.

"Now, Young Grumpy was so puzzled by this indifference that, instead of
rushing right in and biting the haughty bird, he sat up on his haunches
at a distance of some five or six feet and began to squeak his defiance.
The gander turned his head. Straightway he opened his long yellow bill,
gave vent to a hiss like the steam from an escape pipe, stuck out his
snaky neck close to the ground, lifted his broad gray-and-white wings,