e Harry put on. What have you done with it? You haven't--" she
looked about the box and the ground and then viewed the bird
sternly--"you haven't eaten it?"

Methuselah cocked his eyes at her in a world-wearied way that seemed to
say, "Well, what if I have? I might as well die one way as another." But
Roy discovered the bedraggled length of linen a little way off and
restored it to Harry.

"I'm so glad!" said the girl with a sigh of relief. "I didn't know but
he might have, you know. Why, once he actually ate a whole ounce of
turnip seeds!"

"Hurt him?" asked Roy interestedly.

"N-no, I don't believe so, but I was awfully afraid it would. John, the
gardener, said he'd have appendicitis. But then, John was mad because he
needed the seeds."

Methuselah had closed his eyes and now looked as though resolved to die
at once and get it over with. But at that moment Snip trotted out from
the barn, where he had been hunting for rats, and hailed Roy as a
long-lost friend. Perhaps the incident saved the bird's life. At least
it caused him to alter his mind about dying at once, for he blinked his
eyes open, watched the performance for a moment and then broke out in a
hoarse croak with:

"Stop your swearing! Stop your swearing! Stop your swearing! Stop your
swearing!"

It was such a pathetic apology for a voice that Roy had to laugh even at
the risk of wounding Harry's feelings. But Harry, too, found it amusing
and joined her laugh with his. Whereupon Methuselah mocked them
sarcastically in tones that suggested the indelicacy of laughing at a
dying friend.

"I think," said Harry, "he'd like you to scratch his head."

Roy looked doubtfully at the bird and the bird looked suspiciously at
Roy, but when the latter had summoned up sufficient courage to allow of
the experiment Methuselah closed his eyes and bent his head in evident
appreciation and enjoyment.

"I don't believe you're nearly so sick as you're making out," said Roy.
"I believe you're an old bluffer."

And the bird actually chuckled!

Harry doused the bandage with turpentine again and once more tied it
around Methuselah's neck.

"Now don't you dare scratch it off again," she commanded severely,
shaking her finger at him.

"Well, I never--" began the bird. But weariness overcame him in the
middle of the sentence and he closed his beady eyes again and nodded
sleepily.

"I don't believe he slept very well last night," confided Harry in a
whisper.

"Maybe