She did him
no harm, either, but he couldn't place any confidence in her. Then, too,
she quarrelled with him constantly, because he loved human beings. "You
think they protect you because they are fond of you," said Clawina. "You
just wait until you are fat enough! Then they'll wring the neck off you.
I know them, I do."
Jarro, like all birds, had a tender and affectionate heart; and he was
unutterably distressed when he heard this. He couldn't imagine that his
mistress would wish to wring the neck off him, nor could he believe any
such thing of her son, the little boy who sat for hours beside his
basket, and babbled and chattered. He seemed to think that both of them
had the same love for him that he had for them.
One day, when Jarro and Caesar lay on the usual spot before the fire,
Clawina sat on the hearth and began to tease the wild duck.
"I wonder, Jarro, what you wild ducks will do next year, when Takern is
drained and turned into grain fields?" said Clawina. "What's that you
say, Clawina?" cried Jarro, and jumped up--scared through and through.
"I always forget, Jarro, that you do not understand human speech, like
Caesar and myself," answered the cat. "Or else you surely would have
heard how the men, who were here in the cottage yesterday, said that all
the water was going to be drained from Takern, and that next year the
lake-bottom would be as dry as a house-floor.
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