guessed he should go into the hospital. Then we didn't see anything of
him for most a week, until little Redder Squirrel came around and said
Mr. Crow was all right; that he had as many as six peacock feathers
growing right out of his tail.

"Well, now, you can believe we were astonished, and more excited over it
than we had been since young Mr. Thomas Cat painted the canary yellow.
Of course we asked Redder Squirrel where we could see him, and he said
Mr. Crow had agreed to come out on the hill, just under the tree, that
afternoon.

"If we animals around here were anxious to see him, you can guess that
the peacocks were just about wild, and when the time came for Mr. Crow
to show himself, all the peacocks for as many as five miles around were
gathered under the big tree. Mr. Crow didn't know anything about their
coming, until he marched right out in the midst of them.

[Illustration: Mr. Crow showing his new feathers to the peacocks.]

"Now Mr. Crow is really a wise bird, and how it happened that he was so
foolish as to do what he did, beats me. Anybody with half an eye could
see that he had simply stuck these feathers in his tail, and was trying
to make us believe they had grown there. If he had stayed on the tree
where we couldn't get very near him, there might have been some chance
of deceiving us; but there he was right down where we could put our paws
on him if we wanted to. And the peacocks! Angry? Oh me, oh my, don't say
a word!

"One big one reached over with his beak, and pulled a feather from Mr.
Crow's tail.