was worth.  Then he gave the thing up as a bad matter and flew up to his favorite roost in the top of a tall pine-tree, leaving the egg on the ground.  But from where he sat on his favorite roost in the tall pine-tree he could see that provoking egg, a little spot of shining white.  When a Jolly Little Sunbeam found it and rested on it, it was so very bright and shiny that Blacky couldn’t keep his eyes off it.

Little by little he forgot that it was an egg.  At least, he forgot that he wanted to eat it.  He began to find pleasure in just looking at it.  It might not satisfy his stomach, but it certainly was very satisfying to his eyes.  He forgot to think of it as a thing to eat, but began to think of it wholly as a thing to look at and admire.  He was glad he hadn’t been able to break that shell.

Once more he spread his black wings and flew down to the egg.  He cocked his head to one side and looked at it.  He cocked his head to the other side and looked at it.  He walked all around it, chuckling and saying to himself, “Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty and all mine, mine, mine, mine!  Pretty, pretty, and all mine!”

Than he craftily looked all about to make sure that no one was watching him.  Having made quite sure, he rolled the egg over and turned it around and admired it to his heart’s content.  At last he picked it up and carried it to his treasure-house and covered it over very carefully.  And there that china nest-egg, for that is what he had stolen, is still his chief treasure to this day, and Blacky still sometimes wonders what kind of a hen laid such a hard-shelled egg.

Blacky has had very many other adventures, but it would take another book to tell about all of them.  That would be hardly fair to some of the other little people who also have had adventures and want them told to you.  One of these is a beautiful little fellow who lives in the Green Forest, and so the next book will be Whitefoot the Wood Mouse.

*** End of the project gutenberg EBOOK, Blacky the Crow ***

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