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63. The Screech Owl and The Farmer
- The University of Alabama Press
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63 the screech owl and the farmer A SCREECH OWL JUST learning to talk flew into a tree to practice the one word he knew, a word his mother had taught him that morning . He seated himself on a limb and arranged his feathers to his satisfaction, but before he had a chance to speak, a farmer ploughing in the fields below him pulled up his team, took off his hat, and scratched his head uncertainly. "I declare," said the fanner to himself. "I believe I made a mistake in planting corn this year. My brother-in-law told me to put in oats instead." "Who?" asked the screech owl in a small, quavering voice. The farmer turned around, but not seeing anybody, he came to the conclusion that some stranger was sitting [ 122 ] in the tree to his left, hidden by the foliage. "My brother-in-law told me," he repeated politely. "He's the one I'm talking about. He's a tall, sandy-haired man with a red face." "Who? Who? Who?" asked the little owl in his base register, and this time he managed to put contempt into the falling inflection of the word. "Who?" he said again, and then, as if running up and down the scale, he repeated , "Who-o-o? Who-o-o?" as though he were laughing at the fanner, his brother-in-law, and their pretensions . The farmer left his team and came to the fence. He broke a club from a dead apple tree and said angrily, "If somebody I know doesn't act more civil in the future, that somebody is going to get his head knocked off." He waited, swinging his stick, and then the young screech owl, getting more and more sure of himself, lifted his neck and shouted in the shrillest, most penetrating voice. "Wh-o-o-o? Wh-o-o-o?" uYou, that's who!" said the enraged fanner. He hurled his club into the tree in the direction of the voice, and the surprised little owl was knocked off his perch; then, when he saw the farmer breaking another limb from the apple tree, he gathered himself together and flew back to his mother as fast as he could manage it, having learned, without the loss of too many feathers, the fate of those who ask questions for the pleasure of hearing their own voices. [ 12~ ] ...