Children of the Wild. Sir Charles G. D. Roberts
gliding around his roosting places in the black nights, or an extra bitter midwinter frost catches him after a rainy thaw."
He paused and drew hard on his pipe, with that far-away look in his eyes which the Babe had learned to regard as the forerunner to a story. There were some interesting questions to ask, of course; but though bursting with curiosity as to why anyone should find it better to be a wild goose, or even a hummingbird, than a crow, the Babe sternly repressed himself. He would ask those questions by and by, that he promised himself. But he had learned that to speak inopportunely was sometimes to make Uncle Andy change his mind and shut up like an oyster. He was determined that he would not open his mouth till the story should be well under way, till his uncle should be himself too much interested to be willing to stop. And then, to his horror, just as he was recording this sagacious resolution in his mind, he heard himself demanding:
"But why after a rainy thaw?"
It was out before he could choke it back. There was nothing for him to do but stick to it and gaze at his uncle with disarming innocence. Uncle Andy turned upon him a glance of slow contumely.
"If you were going to be caught out in a blizzard, would you rather be in dry clothes or in wet ones?" he inquired.
The Babe smiled apologetically and resumed his study of the agitated pine-tops, whence, from time to time, a crow, or two or three, would burst forth for a brief, whirling flight, as if to show how it was done. Then other flights were made, which seemed to the Babe extremely brief and hesitating, as if the flyers were nervous when they found themselves out clear of the branches and suspended on their own wings over the empty deeps of air. Presently there was a sudden tumultuous outburst of ca-ing, the branches shook, and a whole flock, perhaps two score or more, swarmed into the air. After a few moments of clamorous confusion they all flew off in the direction of the muddy flats at the lower end of the lake. The pine-tops subsided into stillness. But an occasional hoarse croak or muttered guttural showed that a few of their occupants had been left at home. The Babe wondered what it had all been about, but he succeeded in holding his tongue.
In a moment or two this heroic self-restraint had its reward.
"Trying to show some of the youngsters how to fly, and jeering at the timid ones and the stupid ones!" explained Uncle Andy.
"Oh!" said the Babe, with a long, appreciative inflection.
Uncle Andy paused, leaving an opening for more questions. But the Babe refused to be drawn, so presently, with a comprehending grin, he went on:
"It's rather a small affair for crows, you know, this colony of theirs here on Silverwater. I suppose they've been crowded out from the places they really prefer, along the skirts of the settlements on the other side of the Ridge. They would rather live always somewhere near the farms and the cleared fields. Not that they have any special affection for man. Far from it. They dislike him, and distrust him, and seem to think him a good deal of a fool, too. His so-called 'scarecrows' are a great joke to them, and have been known at times to afford some fine materials for the lining of their nests. But they find him so useful in many really important ways that they establish their colonies in his neighborhood whenever they possibly can."
Here Uncle Andy made another long pause. He looked at the Babe suspiciously.
"Is anything the matter?" he demanded.
"No, thank you, Uncle Andy," replied the Babe politely.
"But you haven't asked a single question for at least seven minutes," said Uncle Andy.
"I was too busy listening to you," explained the Babe. "But there's one I'd like to ask, if it's all the same to you."
"Well, fire away," said his uncle.
"Why did they all fly away like that, as if they had just remembered something awfully important? And why would you rather be a little tiny humming-bird than a crow? And why did it take the whole flock that way to teach the young ones to fly? And—and why are they afraid, when they are born to fly? And why do they make fun of the stupid ones? And why would you like to be a wild goose? And, and—"
"Stop! stop!" cried Uncle Andy. "I didn't know you had a Gatling about you when I told you to fire away. You wait and shoot those questions at Bill, just like that, to-night."
"Well, but why—"
"No, you must not interrupt," insisted Uncle Andy.
"But you asked me! I was just as quiet—"
"I didn't know what I was doing!" said his uncle. "And I can't possibly answer all those questions. Why, I could never begin to remember half of them."
"I can," interposed the Babe.
"Oh, you needn't mind," said Uncle Andy, hastily. "But perhaps, if you listen with great care, you may find answers to some of them in what I am going to tell you. Of course, I don't promise, for I don't know what you asked me. But maybe you'll hear something that will throw some light on the subject."
"Thank you very much," said the Babe.
"There were only two young ones in the nest," said Uncle Andy, in his sometimes irrelevant way, which seemed deliberately designed to make the Babe ask questions. "The nest was a big, untidy structure of sticks and dead branches; but it was strongly woven for all its untidiness, because it had to stand against the great winds sweeping down over the Ridge. Inside it was very nicely and softly lined with dry grass, and some horse-hair, and a piece of yellow silk from the lining of what had once been a ruffle or something like that that women wear. The nest was in a tall pine, which stood at one end of a grove of ancient fir trees overlooking a slope of pasture and an old white farmhouse with a big garden behind it. Nearly all the trees had crows' nests in their tops, but in most of the other nests there were three or four young crows."
As Uncle Andy paused again at this point the Babe, who was always polite, felt that he was really expected to ask a question here. If he did not, it might look as if he were not taking an interest. He would rather ask too many questions than run the risk of seeming inappreciative.
"Why were there only two young ones in the nest in the pine tree?" he inquired.
It was very hard to know sometimes just what would please Uncle Andy, and what wouldn't. But this time it was quite all right.
"Now, that's a proper, sensible question," said he. "I was just coming to that. You see, there ought to have been four youngsters in that nest, too, for there had been four greeny-blue, brown-spotted eggs to start with. But even crows have their troubles. And the pair that owned this particular nest were a somewhat original and erratic couple. When the mother had laid her last egg and was getting ready to sit, she decided to take an airing before settling down to work. Though her mate was not at hand to guard the nest, she flew off down to the farm to see if there was anything new going on among those foolish men, or perhaps to catch a mouse among the cornstalks."
"Do crows eat mice?" demanded the Babe in astonishment.
"Of course they do," answered Uncle Andy impatiently. "Everybody that eats meat at all eats mice, except us human beings. And in some parts of the world we, too, eat them, dipped in honey."
"Oh—h—h!" shuddered the Babe.
"Well, as I was going to say when you interrupted me, no sooner was she well out of the way than a red squirrel, who had been watching from the nearest fir tree, saw his chance. It was a rare one. Nobody liked eggs better than he did, or got fewer of them. Like a flash he was over from the fir branches into the pine ones, and up and into the nest.
"His sharp teeth went into the nearest egg, and he drank its contents greedily—and cleverly, let me tell you, for it's not so easy to manage without getting it all over your fur. He was just going to begin on another when there was a sharp hiss of wings just above him and a loud ca-ah of alarm. The father bird was back and swooping down upon him. He threw himself clear of the nest, fell to a lower branch, and raced out to its tip to spring into his fir tree. At this moment the furious father struck him, knocking him clean off into