me." And she pounced upon the
brownish bit, intending to pick it up and throw it out of the
house.

Rusty had already decided that he had better go away from home for
a little while, until things were pleasanter, when his wife
suddenly faced about and fixed him with her glittering eyes.

"Ha!" she cried, holding up the scrap in her bill for him to see.
"Tobacco!" she screamed. "And what, pray, have you to say to me
now?"

VIII

RUSTY IN TROUBLE

Rusty Wren edged toward the door--that little opening in the syrup
can, only slightly bigger than a twenty-five-cent piece. He wished
he was already safely through it, for he did not like the look in
his wife's eyes.

"I must be going now," he said faintly--though he was generally as
bold as brass.

"Wait a moment!" Mrs. Rusty ordered. "Where did this tobacco come
from?" She spoke somewhat thickly, for she still held the bit of
brown leaf in her bill.

"I can't imagine," he stammered. "I never knew it was sticking to
my tail until I saw it and brushed it off----"

"On my clean floor!" his wife interrupted. "Goodness knows it's bad
enough to have you forever doing things like that without your
bringing _tobacco_ into my clean house--and without smelling of
smoke, too."

For almost the first time in his life Rusty Wren was really
worried. Somehow, he had managed to get into something a good deal
like a scrape. It seemed to him that the house was terribly hot and
stuffy; and always before he had thought it quite comfortable.

"I'm going out for a breath of fresh air," he protested feebly. And
before Mrs. Rusty could stop him he dodged past her and slipped
through the tiny doorway, leaving her to scold to her heart's
content.

All this happened in the middle of the morning. And the cuckoo
clock in Farmer Green's kitchen had sung the hour six times before
Rusty Wren returned.

Never before had he stayed away from his snug house so long. And,
naturally, that made him have a guilty feeling, as if he had really
done something to be ashamed of. As for smoking, he had (as he
said) never smoked in his life. It was true that Farmer Green was
burning stumps in the pasture that morning, and that the odor of
the smoke had clung to Rusty's feathers.

But the bit of tobacco that had clung to his tail was a mystery
that he couldn't explain. It was a most unfortunate accident. But
Rusty hoped that by that time--it was then the middle of the
afternoon--he hoped that h