“That is what they say up in the Far North,”
replied Mrs. Quack. “And it is true that
Jack Frost had started down earlier than usual.
That is how it happens we are here now. But
about those hunters over by the Big River, do you
suppose they will come over here?” There was
an anxious note in Mrs. Quack’s voice.
“No,” replied Blacky promptly. “Farmer
Brown’s boy won’t let them. I know.
I’ve been watching him and he has been watching
those hunters. As long as you stay here, you
will be safe. What a great world this would
be if all those two-legged creatures were like Farmer
Brown’s boy.”
“Wouldn’t it!” cried Peter.
Then he added, “I wish they were.”
“You don’t wish it half as much as I do,”
declared Mrs. Quack.
“Yet I can remember when he used to hunt with
a terrible gun and was as bad as the worst of them,”
said Blacky.
“What changed him?” asked Mrs. Quack,
looking interested.
“Just getting really acquainted with some of
the little people of the Green Forest and the Green
Meadows,” replied Blacky. “He found
them ready to meet him more than halfway in friendship
and that some of them really are his best friends.”
“And now he is their best friend,” spoke
up Peter.
Blacky nodded. “Right, Peter,” said
he. “That is why the Quacks are safe here
and will be as long as they stay.”
Do not take the word of others
That things are or are not so
When there is a chance that you
may
Find out for yourself and know.
— Blacky the Crow.
Blacky the Crow is a shrewd fellow. He is one
of the smartest and shrewdest of all the little people
in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadows.
Everybody knows it. And because of this, all
his neighbors have a great deal of respect for him,
despite his mischievous ways.
Of course, Blacky had noticed that Johnny Chuck had
dug his house deeper than usual and had stuffed himself
until he was fatter than ever before. He had
noticed that Jerry Muskrat was making the walls of
his house thicker than in other years, and that Paddy
the Beaver was doing the same thing to his house.
You know there is very little that escapes the sharp
eyes of Blacky the Crow.
He had guessed what these things meant. “They
think we are going to have a long, hard, cold winter,
" muttered Blacky to himself. “Perhaps
they know, but I want to see some signs of it for
myself. They may be only guessing. Anybody
can do that, and one guess is as good as another.”
Then he found Mr. and Mrs. Quack, the Mallard Ducks,
and their children in the pond of Paddy the Beaver
and remembered that they never had come down from
their home in the Far North as early in the fall as
this. Mrs. Quack explained that Jack Frost had
already started south, and so they had started earlier
to keep well ahead of him.
