Caw! Caw! Caw! little boys and girls. Caw! Caw! Caw! Just look at my
coat of feathers. See how black and glossy it is. Do you wonder I am
proud of it?
Perhaps you think I look very solemn and wise, and not at all as if I
cared to play games. I do, though; and one of the games I like best is
hide-and-seek. I play it with the farmer in the spring. He hides, in the
rich, brown earth, golden kernels of corn. Surely he does it because he
knows I like it, for sometimes he puts up a stick all dressed like a man
to show where the corn is hidden. Sometimes I push my bill down into the
earth to find the corn, and at other times I wait until tiny green
leaves begin to show above the ground, and then I get my breakfast
without much trouble. I wonder if the farmer enjoys this game as much
as I do. I help him, too, by eating worms and insects.
During the spring and summer I live in my nest on the top of a very
high tree. It is built of sticks and grasses and straw and string and
anything else I can pick up. But in the fall, I and all my relations and
friends live together in great roosts or rookeries. What good times we
do have--hunting all day for food and talking all night. Wouldn't you
like to be with us?
The farmer who lives in the house over there went to the mill to-day
with a load of corn.
One of the ears dropped out of the wagon and it didn't take me long to
find it. I have eaten all I can possibly hold and am wondering now what
is the best thing to do. If you were in my place would you leave it here
and not tell anybody and come back to-morrow and finish it? Or would you
fly off and get Mrs. Crow and some of the children to come and finish
it? I believe I'll fly and get them. Good-bye.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
[Illustration: COMMON CROW.]