Blacky flew over to a tree some distance away and
alighted in the top of it to watch the queer performance.
You know Blacky has very keen eyes and he can see
a long distance. For a while the man continued
to scatter corn and Blacky continued to wonder what
he was doing it for. At last the man went away
in a boat. Blacky watched him until he was out
of sight. Then he spread his wings and slowly
flew back and forth just above the rushes and wild
rice, at the place where the man had been scattering
the corn. He could see some of the yellow grains
on the bottom. Presently he saw something else.
“Ha!” exclaimed Blacky.
Of things you do not understand,
Beware!
They may be wholly harmless but—
Beware!
You’ll find the older that
you grow
That only things and folks you know
Are fully to be trusted, so
Beware!
— Blacky
the Crow.
That is one of Blacky’s wise sayings, and he
lives up to it. It is one reason why he has
come to be regarded by all his neighbors as one of
the smartest of all who live in the Green Forest and
on the Green Meadow. He seldom gets into any
real trouble because he first makes sure there is
no trouble to get into. When he discovers something
he does not understand, he is at once distrustful of
it.
As he watched a man scattering yellow corn in the
water from the shore of the Big River he at once became
suspicious. He couldn’t understand why
a man should throw good corn among the rushes and
wild rice in the water, and because he couldn’t
understand, he at once began to suspect that it was
for no good purpose. When the man left in a
boat, Blacky slowly flew over the rushes where the
man had thrown the corn, and presently his sharp eyes
made a discovery that caused him to exclaim right
out.
What was it Blacky had discovered? Only a few
feathers. No one with eyes less sharp than Blacky’s
would have noticed them. And few would have
given them a thought if they had noticed them.
But Blacky knew right away that those were feathers
from a Duck. He knew that a Duck, or perhaps
a flock of Ducks, had been resting or feeding in there
among those rushes, and that in moving about they had
left those two or three downy feathers.
“Ha!” exclaimed Blacky. “Mr.
and Mrs. Quack or some of their relatives have been
here. It is just the kind of a place Ducks like.
Also some Ducks like corn.
If they should come back here and find this corn,
they would have a feast, and they would be sure to
come again. That man who scattered the corn
here didn’t have a terrible gun, but that doesn’t
mean that he isn’t a hunter. He may come
back again, and then he may have a terrible gun.
I’m suspicious of that man. I am so.
I believe he put that corn here for Ducks and I don’t
