est feast day of the whole
year.

When Tita had finished putting things in order, her mother said to her,
"Now, my pigeon, see if you can't catch the little white hen, and the
red rooster, and the turkey. The red rooster crows so sweetly I shall
miss him when he is put in the pot, but he is not long for this world!
He is so greedy there's no satisfying him with food. He has no
usefulness at all, except to wake us in the morning.

"But the little white hen now! There is the useful one! She has already
begun to lay. She must surely go to the priest. And as for the turkey,
he needs to go for the sake of his temper! I hope the _padrecito_ will
lay a spell on him to stop his gobbling from morning till night. It will
be no grief to me when he is put on to boil."

The red rooster, the hen, and the turkey were all wandering round in the
little patch of garden behind the house, when Tita came out, rattling
some corn in a dish.

The red rooster began to run the moment he heard corn rattle, and he
called to the hens to come too. He seemed to think they wouldn't know
enough even to eat corn unless he advised them to.

They swarmed around Tita's feet, pecking at each other and snatching
greedily at each kernel as it fell.

"You all need to go to the priest for your manners," Tita said to them
severely. "You behave like the pigs."

She set the dish down on the ground, and when they all tried to get
their heads into it at once, she picked out the legs of the red rooster
and seized them with one hand, and those of the little white hen with
the other, and before they could guess what in the world was happening
to them she had them safely in the house, where she tied them to the
legs of the table.

III

When Tita went back after the turkey, she found him eating the very last
kernels of corn out of the dish. He had driven all the hens away and was
having a very nice time by himself. Tita made a grab for his legs, but
he was too quick for her. He flew up into the fig tree and from there to
the roof. Tita looked up at him anxiously.

"Don't you think you ought to get blessed?" she said. "Come down now,
that's a good old gobbler! Mother says your temper is so bad you must
surely go to the priest, and how can I take you if you won't come down?"

[Illustration]

"Gobble," said the turkey, and stayed where he was.

Tita was in despair. She threw a stick at him, but he only walked up the
thatched roof with his toes turned in,