food is very harmful. It’s as bad as not eating anything at all, almost.”

Solomon Owl showed plainly that her remark surprised him.

“Why,” he exclaimed, “I always swallow my food whole—when it isn’t too
big!”

“Gracious me!” cried Aunt Polly, throwing up both her hands. “It’s no
wonder you’re ill. It’s no wonder you have pains; and now I know exactly
what’s the matter with you. You have a wishbone inside you. I can feel
it!” she told him, as she prodded him in the waistcoat.

“I wish you could get it out for me!” said Solomon with a look of
distress.

“All the wishing in the world won’t help you,” she answered, “unless we
can find some way of removing the wishbone so you can wish on that. Then
I’m sure you would feel better at once.”

“This is strange,” Solomon mused. “All my life I’ve been swallowing my
food without chewing it. And it has never given me any trouble before....
What shall I do?”

“Don’t eat anything for a week,” she directed. “And fly against
tree-trunks as hard as you can. Then come back here after seven days.”

Solomon Owl went off in a most doleful frame of mind. It seemed to him
that he had never seen so many mice and frogs and chipmunks as he came
across during the following week. But he didn’t dare catch a single one,
on account of what Aunt Polly Woodchuck had said.