"This is the Tony Trumbullses' rooster; if I hurry I guess I can
carry him back before breakfast," Rebecca Mary said from the doorway.
"I'll run, Aunt Olivia."

"Carry him back!" Aunt Olivia's muffin spoon dropped into the bowl
of creamy batter. One look at Rebecca Mary convinced her that the
cure had not begun to work. Imperceptibly she stiffened. "He ain't
anybody's but mine. I've bought him," she explained, briefly.
"You set him down and feed him with these crumbs--he ain't human if
he don't like cloth-o'-gold cake."

But the child in the doorway, after gently releasing the great fellow,
drew away quietly. The second look at her face convinced Aunt Olivia
that the cure would never work.

"You feed him, please, Aunt Olivia," Rebecca Mary said; "I--couldn't.
I'll stir the muffins up."

Nothing further was ever said about keeping the Tony Trumbull rooster.
He pecked about the place in unrestrained freedom until the morning
work was done, and then Aunt Olivia carried him home in her apron.

"I concluded not to keep him--he'd likely be homesick," she said,
with a qualm of conscience; for the big, white fellow had certainly
shown no signs of homesickness. But she could not explain and reveal
the secret places of Rebecca Mary's heart. Aunt Olivia, too, had her
ideas of loyalty.

In the diary there occurred brief mention of the episode: "The Tony