CHAPTER XXXI

FEATHER FLOP’S TEMPTATION

“QUEER,” said Feather Flop, as he stopped crowing for a moment early the next morning, “queer, that I can never get to see my little Miss alone any more. How I do hate to see company come, for then I can’t get a word with her! Never mind, I’ll go over to the vegetable garden in a few minutes to see how everything is getting along. I’ll crow very loud now; she might possibly hear and come out.”

He flapped his wings and swelled out his breast, and began to crow loud and long.

He looked at the windows of Mary Frances’ room.

“No sign of her yet. Well, I’ll go over to the garden now, and I’ll work hard to help her.”

He walked over to the play house garden, occasionally stopping to give an answer to a neighboring hen or rooster.

“You’re earlier than usual this morning,” crowed the rooster in the next neighbor’s yard.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo,” answered Feather Flop. “It doesn’t take much to beat you! Good-morning, though!” and walked on.

When he arrived at the vegetable garden, he fell right to work pulling weeds from between the rows of onions and peas.

When he came to the lettuce, he stopped his work.

“My,” he said. “My, doesn’t that look good! Oh, how sweet and tender that looks! I don’t believe anybody would miss a leaf or two of the little leaves inside those largest heads.”

He picked at the inside of the largest and most beautiful head in the garden.

“Good!” he ejaculated. “Good! I should think so! I wish I had more!”

“I hope nobody saw me,” he whispered as he looked around. No one was in sight. “Nobody would miss that little peck! I’ll try another head.”

“That’s better than the other,” he said, swallowing the dainty morsel and blinking hard. “I’ll take a little from each of these large heads, and nobody will know anything about it.”

“That’s all I’ll try now,” he decided finally. “I don’t wonder human beings like such stuff.”

He fell to work again and stopped only when he saw Mary Frances and Eleanor come out of the house and go to the hammock. Then he ran near enough to hear what they were saying.

“To-morrow morning,” Mary Frances began, “to-morrow morning I can take in the beautiful lettuce. Oh, Eleanor, such perfect heads. I can scarcely wait one more day.”

“If we hadn’t promised to go over to Cloverdale, we would work in the garden all day to-day, wouldn’t we, Mary Frances?” said Eleanor.

“Eleanor, I believe you love a garden almost as much as I!” declared Mary Frances. “Well, we can’t work in the garden to-day; we must get ready for our little journey.”

“But, oh—lettuce for to-morrow!” cried Eleanor, throwing her arm around Mary Frances’ waist as they skipped up the walk into the house.

Feather Flop watched them from behind the tree where he was hiding. “Maybe I oughtn’t to have touched it after all,” he said.