Blacky the Crow | Page 5

and we'll have no end of fun with him, " he cried.
"Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw!" shouted all his relatives in great glee.
"Where is he? Lead us to him. We'll drive him out of the Green
Forest!"
So Blacky led the way over to the most lonesome corner of the Green
Forest, straight to the tree in which Hooty the Owl was comfortably
sleeping. Blacky had taken pains to slip over early that morning and
make sure just where he was. He had discovered Hooty fast asleep, and
he knew that he would remain right where he was until dark. You know
Hooty's eyes are not meant for much use in bright light, and the
brighter the light, the more uncomfortable his eyes feel. Blacky knows
this, too, and he had chosen the very brightest part of the morning to
call his relatives over to torment poor Hooty. Jolly, round, bright Mr.
Sun was shining his very brightest, and the white snow on the ground
made it seem brighter still. Even Blacky had to blink, and he knew that
poor Hooty would find it harder still.
But one thing Blacky was very careful not to even hint of, and that was
that Mrs. Hooty was right close at hand. Mrs. Hooty is bigger and even
more fierce than Hooty, and Blacky didn't want to frighten any of the
more timid of his relatives. What he hoped down deep in his crafty
heart was that when they got to teasing and tormenting Hooty and
making the great racket which he knew they would, Mrs. Hooty would
lose her temper and fly over to join Hooty in trying to drive away the
black tormentors. Then Blacky would slip over to the nest which she
had left unguarded and steal one and perhaps both of the eggs he knew
were there.
When they reached the tree where Hooty was, he was blinking his great
yellow eyes and had fluffed out all his feathers, which is a way he has
when he is angry, to make himself look twice as big as he really is. Of
course, he had heard the noisy crew coming, and he knew well enough
what to expect. As soon as they saw him, they began to scream as loud
as ever they could and to call him all manner of names. The boldest of
them would dart at him as if to pull out a mouthful of feathers, but took
the greatest care not to get too near. You see, the way Hooty hissed and
snapped his great bill was very threatening, and they knew that if once

he got hold of one of them with those big cruel claws of his, that would
be the end.
So they were content to simply scold and scream at him and fly around
him, just out of reach, and make him generally uncomfortable, and they
were so busy doing this that no one noticed that Blacky was not joining
in the fun, and no one paid any attention to the old tumble-down nest of
Redtail the Hawk only a few trees distant. So far Blacky's plans were
working out just as he had hoped.

CHAPTER VI
: Hooty The Owl Doesn't Stay Still
Now what's the good of being smart When others do not do their part?
If Blacky the Crow didn't say this to himself, he thought it. He knew
that he had made a very cunning plan to get the eggs of Hooty the Owl,
a plan so shrewd and cunning that no one else in the Green Forest or on
the Green Meadows would have thought of it. There was only one
weakness in it, and that was that it depended for success on having
Hooty the Owl do as he usually did when tormented by a crowd of
noisy Crows, -- stay where he was until they got tired and flew away.
Now Blacky sometimes makes a mistake that smart people are very apt
to make; he thinks that because he is so smart, other people are stupid.
That is where he proves that smart as he is, he isn't as smart as he
thinks he is. He always thought of Hooty the Owl as stupid. That is, he
always thought of him that way in daytime. At night, when he was
waked out of a sound sleep by the fierce hunting cry of Hooty, he
wasn't so sure about Hooty being stupid, and he always took care to sit
perfectly still in the darkness, lest Hooty's great ears should hear him
and
Hooty's great eyes, made for seeing in the dark, should find him. No, in
the night Blacky was not at all sure that Hooty was stupid.
But in the daytime he