Dusky shook his head. “No,” said
he, “but I learned long ago that where there
is one terrible gun there is likely to be more, and
so when I heard that one bang, I led my flock away
from here in a hurry. We didn’t want to
take any chances.”
“It is a lucky thing you did,” replied
Blacky. “There was a hunter hiding behind
those bushes all the time. I warned you of him
once.”
“That reminds me that I haven’t thanked
you,” said Dusky. “I knew there
was something wrong over here, but I didn’t know
what. So it was a hunter. I guess it is
a good thing that I heeded your warn-ing.”
“I guess it is,” retorted Blacky dryly.
“Do you come here in daytime instead of night
now?”
“No,” replied Dusky. “We come
in after dark and spend the night here. There
is nothing to fear from hunters after dark. We’ve
given up coming here until late in the evening.
And since we did that, we haven’t heard a gun.”
Blacky gossiped a while longer, then flew off to look
for his breakfast; and as he flew his heart was light.
His shrewd little eyes twinkled.
“I ought to have known Farmer Brown’s
boy better than even to suspect him,” thought
he. “I know now why he had that terrible
gun. It was to frighten those Ducks away so that
the hunter would not have a chance to shoot them.
He wasn’t shooting at anything. He just
fired in the air to scare those Ducks away. I
know it just as well as if I had seen him do it.
I’ll never doubt Farmer Brown’s boy again.
And I’m glad I didn’t say a word to anybody
about seeing him with a terrible gun.”
Blacky was right. Farmer Brown’s boy had
taken that way of making sure that the hunter who
had first baited those Ducks with yellow corn scattered
in the rushes in front of his hiding place should
have no chance to kill any of them. While appearing
to be an enemy, he really had been a friend of Dusky
the Black Duck and his flock.
Blacky is fond of eggs, as you know. In this
he is a great deal like other people, Farmer Brown’s
boy for instance. But as Blacky cannot keep
hens, as Farmer Brown’s boy does, he is obliged
to steal eggs or else go without. If you come
right down to plain, everyday truth, I suppose Blacky
isn’t so far wrong when he insists that he is
no more of a thief than Farmer Brown’s boy.
Blacky says that the eggs which the bens lay belong
to the hens, and that he, Blacky has just as much
right to take them as Farmer Brown’s boy.
He quite overlooks the fact that Farmer Brown’s
boy feeds the biddies and takes the eggs as pay.
Anyway, that is what Farmer Brown’s boy says,
but I do not know whether or not the biddies understand
it that way.
