Read Ebook: The Tale of Old Mr. Crow by Bailey Arthur Scott

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 473 lines and 17038 words, and 10 pages

At last Johnnie Green's father spent a whole evening trying to think of some way in which to outwit Mr. Crow. And by bedtime he had hit upon a plan that he liked.

The next day, with Johnnie to help him, he set to work to build a monster scarecrow. It was twice as high as the tallest man that was ever seen. And for a hat Farmer Green set on its straw head a huge tin pan, which glittered when the sun shone upon it.

"That'll fix him!" said Farmer Green, as he stood off and looked at the giant. And as for his son Johnnie, he danced up and down and shouted--he was so pleased.

But Mr. Crow was not pleased when he flew toward the cornfield the next day and saw the great figure of a man there, with a terrible glittering helmet upon his head. And Mr. Crow noticed something upon the giant's shoulder that looked very like a gun.

The old gentleman swerved quickly to one side and never stopped his flight until he had reached the woods.

And that night Farmer Green felt quite merry.

"I've scared that old crow away at last," he said.

CAUGHT NAPPING

It was several days before Mr. Crow stopped sulking. He was very angry with Farmer Green for placing the giant in the cornfield. And he told his friends that he had about made up his mind he would move to some other neighborhood.

And then, the very day before he had planned to move, Mr. Crow noticed something that made him change his mind. He was sitting in the top of a tall pine, looking mournfully across the cornfield, where he dared not go, when he saw a small bird drop down upon the giant's head and disappear.

"He's eaten her!" Mr. Crow exclaimed. But as he stared, the little bird appeared again and flew away.

Old Mr. Crow knew it was a mother wren; and he was not long in discovering that she had built a nest under the tin pan that the giant wore in place of a hat!

That was enough for Mr. Crow. The secret was out! The thing he had feared was nothing worse than a straw scarecrow, with a stick stuck over its shoulder to look like a gun.

The old gentleman felt quite foolish for a time. But he did not let that fact prevent his scratching up enough corn to make up for the meals he had lost.

After that he quickly recovered his spirits. And he forgot all about moving.

But if Mr. Crow felt merry, you may be sure that Farmer Green did not. It was his turn to feel foolish. And he vowed that he would get even with Mr. Crow, if it took him all summer.

Meanwhile, Mr. Crow grew careless. He really thought that Farmer Green wouldn't be able to think of any other way of keeping him out of the cornfield. And he spent so much of his time there that he grew quite fat. He became somewhat short-breathed, too. And his voice grew wheezier than ever. But Mr. Crow did not mind those things. He was getting all the corn he could eat. And he was happy.

Then there came a morning at last, as he soared down upon the cornfield, when he noticed that the huge scarecrow was gone. There was another--a shorter--figure in its place. But to careless Mr. Crow's glance it seemed no different from the scarecrows he had known all his life. He paid little or no attention to the image. It wore the big pan upon its head--he observed that much. And it made him laugh.

Then Mr. Crow began to scratch for his breakfast. But he had not eaten a single kernel when a terrible roar broke the early morning stillness. And there was a sound as of hail falling all around him.

Mr. Crow knew right away what had happened. The scarecrow had come to life and tried to shoot him! And if ever a bird hurried away from that field, it was old Mr. Crow.

It was almost night before he remembered that he had had nothing to eat all day. And so anybody can see how frightened he was....

Farmer Green walked home to his own breakfast with his gun resting upon his shoulder.

"I didn't get him," he told Johnnie. "But I must have scared him out of a year's growth."

A GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT

After Farmer Green came so near shooting him, Mr. Crow lost his taste for corn for a whole year. He was afraid it would never come back to him. And he worried so much that he grew quite thin and his feathers began to look rusty. His friends were somewhat alarmed about his health, many of them saying that if they were in Mr. Crow's place they would be careful.

Now, strange as it may seem, that was exactly Mr. Crow's trouble. He was too careful! He was always on the lookout for a gun, or a trap. And being constantly on guard was bad for his nerves.

Luckily, a winter spent in the South did a great deal to improve Mr. Crow's health, as well as his state of mind. When he came back to Pleasant Valley the following March he told his cousin Jasper Jay that he really felt he would be able to eat corn again.

As the spring lengthened, that feeling grew upon Mr. Crow. And when planting-time arrived the black rascal had his old look again.

It was a very solemn look--unless you regarded him closely. But it was a very sly, knowing look if you took the pains to stare boldly into his eye.

"I declare--there's that old crow again!" he exclaimed. "He's come back to bother me once more. But maybe I'm smarter than he thinks!"

Mr. Crow knew better than to come too near the men who were working in the cornfield. He just sat on the fence on the further side of the road and watched them for a while. And he was getting hungrier every minute. But he had no chance to scratch up any corn that day.

The next day, however, the men had moved further down the field. Mr. Crow had been waiting for that. He flew to the edge of the ploughed ground, which they had planted the afternoon before, and dug up a kernel of corn.

He didn't stop to look at it. He knew it was corn--just by the feeling of it. And it was inside his mouth in a twinkling.

And in another twinkling it was outside again--for Mr. Crow did not like the taste at all.

"That's a bad one!" he remarked. And then he tried another kernel--and another--and another. But they were all like the first one.

Thereupon, Mr. Crow paused and looked at the corn. And he saw at once that there was something wrong. The kernels were gray, instead of a golden yellow. He pecked at one of them and found that the gray coating hid something black and sticky.

That was tar, though Mr. Crow did not know it. And the gray covering was wood-ashes, in which Farmer Green had rolled the corn after dipping it in tar. The tar made the corn taste bad. And the wood-ashes kept it from sticking to one's fingers.

"This is a great disappointment," said Mr. Crow very solemnly. "Of all the mean tricks that Farmer Green has played on me, this is by far the meanest. It would serve him right if I went away and never caught a single grasshopper or cutworm all summer."

But there were two reasons that prevented Mr. Crow's leaving Pleasant Valley. He liked his old home. And he liked grasshoppers and cutworms, too. So he stayed until October. And the strange part of it was that he never once discovered that Farmer Green had planted tarred corn only in a border around the field. Inside that border the corn was of the good, old yellow kind that Mr. Crow liked.

And so, for once, Farmer Green out-witted old Mr. Crow.

MR. CROW IN TROUBLE

After Mr. Crow found that Farmer Green had put tar on his corn, Mr. Crow was so angry that he flew for a good many miles before stopping. And then, as he started to walk along the limb that lead to his house in the tall elm, he noticed for the first time that he could hardly move his right foot.

He looked down and he was startled when he saw that his foot was many times its usual size. Moreover, it did not look like a foot at all, being a strange, huge, shapeless thing.

Old Mr. Crow was alarmed. Never in all his life had he found himself in such a plight. He stayed at home only long enough to tie his foot up in a bandage, which made it look bigger than ever. And then he hurried off as fast as he could fly to call upon Aunt Polly Woodchuck, who was said to be an excellent doctor.

Aunt Polly was at home. And since Mr. Crow could not crawl inside her house, she received him in her dooryard.

As soon as she looked at Mr. Crow's foot Aunt Polly Woodchuck threw up both her hands.

"You have gout!" she cried. "And it's the worst case I ever saw."

That made Mr. Crow feel proud and happy.

"What about a cure?" he inquired. "I shouldn't like to have my foot like this always. If you could cure it in a week I would be satisfied. But I want at least a week in which to show my foot to my friends."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet