Little things you fail to see
May important prove to be.
--Blacky the Crow.
One of the secrets of Blacky's success in life is the fact that he never
fails to take note of little things. Long ago he learned that little
things which in themselves seem harmless and not worth noticing may
together prove the most important things in life. So, no matter how
unimportant a thing may appear, Blacky examines it closely with those
sharp eyes of his and remembers it.
The very first thing Blacky did, as soon as he was awake the morning
after he discovered the man scattering corn in the rushes at a certain
place on the edge of the Big River, was to fly over to the pond of Paddy
the Beaver and again warn Mr. and Mrs. Quack to keep away from the Big
River, if they and their six children would remain safe. Then he got
some breakfast. He ate it in a hurry and flew straight over to the Big
River to the place where he had seen that yellow corn scattered.
Blacky wasn't wholly surprised to find Dusky the Black Duck, own cousin
to Mr. and Mrs. Quack the Mallard Ducks, with a number of his relatives
in among the rushes and wild rice at the very place where that corn had
been scattered. They seemed quite contented and in the best of spirits.
Blacky guessed why. Not a single grain of that yellow corn could Blacky
see. He knew the ways of Dusky and his relatives. He knew that they must
have come in there just at dusk the night before and at once had found
that corn. He knew that they would remain hiding there until frightened
out, and that then they would spend the day in some little pond where
they would not be likely to be disturbed or where at least no danger
could approach them without being seen in plenty of time. There they
would rest all day, and when the Black Shadows came creeping out from
the Purple Hills, they would return to that place on the Big River to
feed, for that is the time when they like best to hunt for their food.
Dusky looked up as Blacky flew over him, but Blacky said nothing, and
Dusky said nothing. But if Blacky didn't use his tongue, he did use his
eyes. He saw just on the edge of the shore what looked like a lot of
small bushes growing close together on the very edge of the water. Mixed
in with them were a lot of the brown rushes. They looked very harmless
and innocent. But Blacky knew every foot of that shore along the Big
River, and he knew that those bushes hadn't been there during the
summer. He knew that they hadn't grown there.
He flew directly over them. Just back of them were a couple of logs.
Those logs hadn't been there when he passed that way a few days before.
He was sure of it.
“Ha!” exclaimed Blacky under his breath. “Those look to me as if they
might be very handy, very handy indeed, for a hunter to sit on. Sitting
there behind those bushes, he would be hidden from any Duck who might
come in to look for nice yellow corn scattered out there among the
rushes. It doesn't look right to me. No, Sir, it doesn't look right to
me. I think I'll keep an eye on this place.”
So Blacky came back to the Big River several times that day. The second
time back he found that Dusky the Black Duck and his relatives had left.
When he returned in the afternoon, he saw the same man he had seen
there the afternoon before, and he was doing the same thing,--scattering
yellow corn out in the rushes. And as before, he went away in a boat.
“I don't like it,” muttered Blacky, shaking his black head. “I don't
like it.”