“I guess the law that permits hunting Ducks
is all right, but there ought to be a law against
baiting them in. That isn’t hunting.
No, Sir, that isn’t hunting. If this
land were my father’s, I would know what to
do. I would put up a sign saying that this was
private property and no shooting was allowed.
But it isn’t my father’s land, and that
hunter has a perfect right to shoot here. He
has just as much right here as I have. I wish
I could stop him, but I don’t see how I can.”
A frown puckered the freckled face of Farmer Brown’s
boy. You see, he was thinking very hard, and
when he does that he is very apt to frown.
“I suppose,” he muttered, “I can
tear down his blind. He wouldn’t know
who did it. But that wouldn’t do much good;
he would build another. Besides, it wouldn’t
be right. He has a perfect right to make a blind
here, and having made it, it is his and I haven’t
any right to touch it. I won’t do a thing
I haven’t a right to do. That wouldn’t
be honest. I’ve got to think of some other
way of saving those Ducks.”
The frown on his freckled face grew deeper, and for
a long time he sat without moving. Suddenly
his face cleared, and he jumped to his feet.
He began to chuckle. “I have it!”
he exclaimed. “I’ll do a little
shooting myself!” Then he chuckled again and
started for home. Presently he began to whistle,
a way he has when he is in good spirits.
Blacky the Crow watched him go, and Blacky was well
satisfied. He didn’t know what Farmer
Brown’s boy was planning to do, but he had a
feeling that he was planning to do something, and that
all would be well. Perhaps Blacky wouldn’t
have felt so sure could he have understood what Farmer
Brown’s boy had said about doing a little shooting
himself.
As it was, Blacky flew off about his own business,
quite satisfied that now all would be well, and he
need worry no more about those Ducks. None of
the little people of the Green Forest and the Green
Meadows knew Farmer Brown’s boy better than did
Blacky the Crow. None knew better than he that
Farmer Brown’s boy was their best friend.
“It is all right now,” chuckled Blacky.
“It is all right now.” And as the
cheery whistle of Farmer Brown’s boy floated
back to him on the Merry Little Breezes, he repeated
it: “It is all right now.”
When friends prove false, whom may
we trust?
The springs of faith are turned
to dust.
— Blacky the Crow.
Blacky the Crow was in the top of his favorite tree
over near the Big River early this afternoon.
He didn’t know what was going to happen, but
he felt in his bones that something was, and he meant
to be on hand to see. For a long time he sat
there, seeing nothing unusual. At last he spied
a tiny figure far away across the Green Meadows.
Even at that distance he knew who it was; it was Farmer
Brown’s boy, and he was coming toward the Big
River.
