Green Forest Stories, Thornton W. Burgess [ebook reader color screen .TXT] 📗

hunter. I feel it in my bones. He knows those silly Ducks come in here every night for that corn he puts out. He knows that after they have been here a few times and nothing has frightened them, they will be so sure that it is a safe place that they will not be the least bit suspicious. Then he will hide behind those bushes he has placed close to the edge of the water and wait for them with his terrible gun. That is what he will do, or my name isn’t Blacky.”

Finally Blacky decided to drop a hint to Dusky the Black Duck. So the next morning he stopped for a call. “Good morning,” said he, as Dusky swam in just in front of him. “I hope you are feeling as fine as you look.”

“Quack, quack,” replied Dusky. “When Blacky the Crow flatters, he hopes to gain something. What is it this time?”

“Not a thing,” replied Blacky. “On my honor, not a thing. There is nothing for me here, though there seems to be plenty for you and your relatives, to judge by the fact that I find you in this same place every morning. What is it?”

“Corn,” replied Dusky in a low voice, as if afraid someone might overhear him. “Nice yellow corn.”

“Corn!” exclaimed Blacky, as if very much astonished. “How does corn happen to be way over here in the water?”

Dusky shook his head. “Don’t ask me, for I can’t tell you,” said he. “I haven’t the least idea. All I know is that every evening when we arrive, we find it here. How it gets here, I don’t know, and furthermore I don’t care. It is enough for me that it is here.”

“I’ve seen a man over here every afternoon,” said Blacky. “I thought he might be a hunter.”

“Did he have a terrible gun?” asked Dusky suspiciously.

“No-o,” replied Blacky.

“Then he isn’t a hunter,” declared Dusky, looking much relieved.

“But perhaps one of these days he will have one and will wait for you to come in for your dinner,” suggested Blacky. “He could hide behind these bushes, you know.”

“Nonsense,” retorted Dusky, tossing his head. “There hasn’t been a sign of danger here since we have been here. I know you, Blacky; you are jealous because we find plenty to eat here, and you find nothing. You are trying to scare us. But I’ll tell you right now, you can’t scare us away from such splendid eating as we have had here. So there!”

XXI At Last Blacky Is Sure

Who for another conquers fear
Is truly brave, it is most clear.

Blacky the Crow

It was late in the afternoon, and Blacky the Crow was on his way to the Green Forest. As usual, he went around by the Big River to see if that man was scattering corn for the Ducks. He wasn’t there. No one was to be seen along the bank of the Big River.

“He hasn’t come today, or else he came early and has left,” thought Blacky. And then his sharp eyes caught sight of something that made him turn aside and make straight for a certain tree, from the top of which he could see all that went on for a long distance. What was it Blacky saw? It was a boat coming down the Big River.

Blacky sat still and watched. Presently the boat turned in among the rushes, and a moment later a man stepped out on the shore. It was the same man Blacky had watched scatter corn in the rushes every day for a week. There wasn’t the least doubt about it, it was the same man.

“Ha, ha!” exclaimed Blacky, and nearly lost his balance in his excitement. “Ha, ha! It is just as I thought!” You see Blacky’s sharp eyes had seen that the man was carrying something, and that something was a gun, a terrible gun. Blacky knows a terrible gun as far as he can see it.

The hunter, for of course that is what he was, tramped along the shore until he reached the bushes which Blacky had noticed close to the water and which he knew had not grown there. The hunter looked out over the Big River. Then he walked along where he had scattered corn the day before. Not a grain was to be seen. This seemed to please him. Then he went back to the bushes and sat down on a log behind them, his terrible gun across his knees.

“I was sure of it,” muttered Blacky. “He is going to wait there for those Ducks to come in, and then something dreadful will happen. What terrible creatures these hunters are! They don’t know what fairness is. No, sir, they don’t know what fairness is. He has put food there day after day, where Dusky the Black Duck and his flock would be sure to find it, and has waited until they have become so sure there is no danger that they are no longer suspicious. He knows they will feel so sure that all is safe that they will come in without looking for danger. Then he will fire that terrible gun and kill them without giving them any chance at all.

“Reddy Fox is a sly, clever hunter, but he wouldn’t do a thing like that. Neither would Old Man Coyote or anybody else who wears fur or feathers. They might hide and try to catch someone by surprise. That is all right, because each of us is supposed to be on the watch for things of that sort. Oh, dear, what’s to be done? It is time I was getting home to the Green Forest. The Black Shadows will soon come creeping out from the Purple Hills, and I must be safe in my hemlock-tree by then. I would be scared to death to be out after dark. Yet those Ducks ought to be warned. Oh, dear, what shall I do?”

Blacky peered over at the Green Forest and