As he turned back toward home, he saw Blacky the Crow
flying over the Green Forest, and little did he guess
how he had upset Blacky’s plans.
CHAPTER XIII: Blacky Has A Change Of Heart
Blacky The Crow isn’t all black. No, indeed.
His coat is black, and sometimes it seems as if his
heart is all black, but this isn’t so.
It certainly seemed as if his heart was all black
when he tried so hard to make trouble for Hooty the
Owl. It would seem as if only a black heart
could have urged him to try so hard to steal the eggs
of Hooty and Mrs. Hooty, but this wasn’t really
so. You see, it didn’t seem at all wrong
to try to get those eggs. Blacky was hungry,
and those eggs would have given him a good meal.
He knew that Hooty wouldn’t hesitate to catch
him and eat him if he had the chance, and so it seemed
to him perfectly right and fair to steal Hooty’s
eggs if he was smart enough to do so. And most
of the other little people of the Green Forest and
the Green Meadows would have felt the same way about
it. You see, it is one of the laws of Old Mother
Nature that each one must learn to look out for himself.
But when Blacky showed that nest of Hooty’s
to Farmer Brown’s boy with the hope that Farmer
Brown’s boy would steal those eggs, there was
blackness in his heart. He was doing something
then which was pure meanness. He was just trying
to make trouble for Hooty, to get even because Hooty
had been too smart for him. He had sat in the
top of a tall pine-tree where he could see all that
happened, and he had chuckled wickedly as he had seen
Farmer Brown’s boy climb to Hooty’s nest
and take out an egg. He felt sure that he would
take both eggs. He hoped so, anyway.
When he saw Farmer Brown’s boy put the eggs
back and climb down the tree without any, he had to
blink his eyes to make sure that he saw straight.
He just couldn’t believe what he saw.
At first he was dreadfully disappointed and angry.
It looked very much as if he weren’t going
to get even with Hooty after all. He flew over
to his favorite tree to think things over. Now
sometimes it is a good thing to sit by oneself and
think things over. It gives the little small
voice deep down inside a chance to be heard.
It was just that way with Blacky now.
The longer he thought, the meaner his action in calling
Farmer Brown’s boy looked. It was one
thing to try to steal those eggs himself, but it was
quite another matter to try to have them stolen by
some one against whom Hooty had no protection whatever.
“If it had been any one but Hooty, you would
have done your best to have kept Farmer Brown’s
boy away, " said the little voice inside. Blacky
hung his head. He knew that it was true.
More than once, in fact many times, he had warned
other feathered folks when Farmer Brown’s boy
had been hunting for their nests, and had helped to
lead him away.
