“How do you feel now?” Aunt Polly Woodchuck asked Solomon Owl, when he had
come back to her house after a week’s absence.

“No better!” he groaned. “I still have pains. But they seem to have moved
and scattered all over me.”

“Good!” she exclaimed with a smile. “You _are_ much better, though you
didn’t know it. The wishbone is broken. You broke it by flying against the
trees. And you ought not to have any more trouble. But let me examine
you!” she said, prodding him in the waistcoat once more.

“This is odd!” she continued a bit later. “I can feel the wishbone more
plainly than ever.”

“That’s my own wishbone!” Solomon cried indignantly. “I’ve grown so thin
through not eating that it’s a wonder you can’t feel my backbone, too.”

Aunt Polly Woodchuck looked surprised.

“Perhaps you’re right!” said she. “Not having a wishbone of my own, I
forgot that you had one.”

A look of disgust came over Solomon Owl’s face.

“You’re a very poor doctor,” he told her. “Here you’ve kept me from eating
for a whole week—and I don’t believe it was necessary at all!”

“Well, you’re better, aren’t you?” she asked him.

“I shall be as soon as I have a good meal,” replied Solomon Owl,