Blacky Daw, the story of a pet crow

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Stick Nest. 7

II Stolen.12

Chapter I The Stick Nest

M Y earliest recollection is of a large, loosely woven nest of sticks in the top of an old elm tree. It wasn’t much of a place to call home, but home it was to me. It was a very happy, crowded little home, for I was one of four baby crows that occupied this nest.

My old black mother was kept very busy providing us children with food. She and my father were on the go from early morning till late evening, foraging for things for us to eat. No matter how much they brought us, they were always greeted on their return by four open, red mouths. “My, my, will I ever get them filled up!” Mother used to say.

The more she carried the faster we grew. The faster we grew the more crowded became the nest. Mother was worried, for it would soon be time for her babies to leave the nest. She was afraid something would happen to us before we learned to take care of ourselves. She was also worried for fear some one would rob the nest and carry away her babies.

When she started out she would say to us, “Now children, do be quiet; don’t get to fussing around, for fear some of you fall out of the nest. If you see boys coming this way, be as still as a mouse. If boys find this nest, they will never stop until they have carried all of you away.”

“All right, Mother, we’ll be good,” we always replied. We tried to mind Mother Crow, too, for we knew she was as smart as she was black. Of Father Crow I don’t remember much, except that he was very handsome, with his black coat glis¬ tening in the sunlight. Mother provided most of the food we had to eat, though occasionally Father Crow would come with a fat field mouse or a small fish. I remember Mother’s saying that Father was an expert fisherman, but a trifle “no-’count.” But we were a very happy family, if Mother did provide most of the living.

One day, while Mother was away, we children heard a dreadful, loud noise in a cornfield near by. We wondered what it could be. After a

“Mother was kept busy providing us with food”

while Mother Crow came home. This time she had nothing in her beak.

“Hush, hush, children !” she said and crawled into the nest, hovering us with her wings. We could feel her heart beating. Surely something had happened. What could it be that had fright¬ ened her so?

After a long time Mother told us that the farmer who owned the cornfield also owned a dreadful thing called a shotgun. Mother had heard him talking one day when she had been in the cornfield looking for cutworms.

“If the crows don’t stay out of my cornfield, I will shoot one and hang him on the wire fence as a warning to all others,” he said.

“I don’t want to be that crow,” Mother had said to herself. She never went back to that cornfield.

When she told Father about it he just laughed.

“Saying is one thing; doing is another,” he had said, and went daily to the cornfield.

The noise we had heard was the gun. Father’s beautiful black coat was decorating the wire fence. A warning, Mother said, to all crows, big and little, as to what a man with a gun will do.

THE STICK NEST 11

“Always remember,” Mother said, “to stay a long way from a gun and from a man.”

“We will always remember,” we told her.

We really did intend to obey our mother. The next day she was about early, hunting food for us four. Sometimes she would only have to go a short distance, but other times she would go a long way and be gone a long time. It was during one of these long absences that we little crows thought we would like to crawl out on the limb on which our nest rested. Oh, how fine it would seem to stand there and look around!

But what were those objects coming down the pathway by the brook?

Chapter II Stolen

T HERE were three of them. We knew at a glance they were the very things of which our Crow Mother had warned us. Their clothes were the regulation uniform of the small boy— gingham shirt and blue overalls. They ambled along, in the aimless fashion of one who is going nowhere in particular and has all day in which to get there.

My heart almost stopped beating, I was so frightened. Mother Crow had hidden the old stick nest away from prying eyes, but we had disobeyed her and left the nest. Now we sat in a row in plain sight of the woodland path. Our only hope lay in keeping so still that the boys would not see us. Our wild instinct told us that much, at least. But I reasoned without my small brother. When he saw those dreadful boys he became very much frightened. He crowded so closely against me that I almost fell off the limb where we were sitting. To keep from falling, I had to flap my wings, and I unconsciously

STOLEN uttered a loud “Ah, ah!” which in crow meant, “Look out what you are doing.”

Of course those boys heard me. I might as well have cried, “Come on, boys, and get me.”

They looked up at my cry, and with one accord shouted, “Crows’ nest, crows’ nest!”

They immediately began climbing the tree.

We had all crept back into the nest by this time, heartily wishing we had minded our mother. What would those dreadful boys do to us? We were all wondering. On, on, they came, closer and closer, to the old stick nest.

At last a grimy hand was thrust in, and fin¬ gers closed about me. I did the best I oould; I bit that hand with all my might. The boy it belonged to let out a howl of rage and called me a bad name; but he held on. Biting, flapping my wings, scratching with my claws, and “Ah, ah-ing!” loudly, 1 was taken from the nest.

I could not break that boy’s hold, fight as I would; his skin must have been tough as rawhide. I cawed loudly for Mother Crow to come and help us, but she was far away hunting food for us, all unconscious of the terrible fate that had overtaken her family.

What would they do with us? This was the question one of the boys asked. “Now that you’ve got it, what are you going to do with it?” was what he said.

By this time each boy had taken a young crow and they were all descending. When they reached the ground, Jim, the boy who held me, replied, “You asked me what I was going to do with it? Well, I’ll tell you. I’m goin’ to make a talking bird out of mine. Maybe sell him for some money when I get him trained.”

“Crows can’t talk,” said one of the other boys.

“Crows can be taught to talk,” answered Jim. “When Dad was a boy he knew some one that had a crow that could talk. All you have to do is to split their tongues and they can talk just like parrots.”

“How dreadful,” I thought, “to split a bird’s tongue! How cruel!” I shuddered at the very idea.

“I don’t believe any such story,” answered the boy who held my little brother.

“Believe it or not, it makes no difference to me,” said Jim. “Let’s be going home. It must

STOLEN 15

be about supper time. I am as empty as air. Swimming makes a fellow hungry.”

They walked along, each with a crow in his arms. The bit of woodland soon ended and they crossed a strip of pasture land. Coming to a wire fence, they crawled through and came out on the highway.

They ambled along in silence, stopping now and then to pick up small stones to throw at red-headed woodpeckers on the telephone poles. At last one of the boys spoke.

“Oh, I don’t want this old bird!” he said, and threw my poor little sister over the fence into the near-by cow pasture.

Poor little sister! She had never yet used her wings for flying, but she instinctively spread them and saved herself a hard fall. She was so frightened that she “Ah, ah-ed!” piteously as she fell to the ground. A flock of crows in a field near by took up the refrain and cawed excitedly.

“I don’t want mine, either,” said the other boy, and he threw my little brother over the pasture fence.

I felt very unhappy, and wondered what was in store for me. Of one thing I felt certain. I had seen the last of the old stick nest, my brothers and sisters and good old Mother Crow. Poor little me! Had I been human, I would have wept. It would be by the merest chance that I would ever see them again. In my heart I bade them all a sad farewell.

The boys followed the path, saying little. The wire fence was passed, and tall osage trees now lined the road on either side. Soon we came to a gate in the hedge. Two boys were at the gate, trying to make two cows pass through it, and still to keep other cattle in the pasture. With much loud “heying” from the boys the two cows elected to pass. They .went through the gate, and it was closed.

Then, and not until then, did the boys ex¬ change greetings. The boys I was with hailed the others as “Toughie” and “Pete.”

From their greetings I somehow gained the impression that Toughie was held in high regard by his friends, though I failed to see why.- He was small and rather thickset. He had a funny little pug nose, merry brown eyes, and tufts of yellow hair showed through the holes in his bat¬ tered straw hat. His clothes were in tatters, his

STOLEN little fists were hard and his neck was short. One thing I noticed was that no one disputed with him.

His companion was as nearly his opposite as you can imagine. He was tall and slender, well dressed and clean, quiet in speech and manner.

What the other boys thought of him I could not tell, but in Toughie’s presence, at least, they gave him the same deference they gave to Toughie.

“What have you there?” Toughie asked, as they finished closing the gate.

“Baby crow,” Jim replied. “What’ll you give for him?”

“Nothing at all,” the other replied. “What do I want with a crow?”

“Make a talking bird out of him,” said Jim. “Teach him to talk like a parrot.”

“You can’t fool me,” argued Toughie. “Crows can’t talk.”

“Well, that’s what most folks say,” Jim con¬ tinued, “but I happen to know different. You can just ask my dad, if you don’t believe me.”

“Well, I don’t believe you,” said Toughie, “and another thing, you can’t sell him to me, because I don’t want a crow.”

This would have ended the matter if the boy called Pete hadn’t at this moment spoken.

“Just how much do you want for your crow?” he asked.

“A dollar,” said Jim, with a hopeful look at Pete. “I think that would be only a fair price.”

“A dollar, indeed!” Toughie spoke in a scornful way. “Now, just understand this right now: no one cheats Pete while I am around.”

“Now, you keep out, Toughie, when Pete and Jim are trying to make a deal,” said the boy that was with Jim.

Toughie doubled up his fists and gave the speaker a look which silenced him immediately.

“Deal with Pete if you want to, but see that you deal fairly,” said Toughie.

The bargaining began and lasted for some time, while the two cows, Boss and Daisy, munched tender grass at the roadside. At last a bargain was struck. Pete was to pay Jim ten cents in cash and give him an old bicycle tire for me, providing Pete’s mother could be persuaded to give Pete the necessary ten cents.

As soon as an agreement was reached, old Boss and Daisy were hurried along to their respective

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“Make a talking bird out of him”

cowsheds. When they had been properly dis¬ posed of, the boys went in a body to the home of Pete to see if the terms of the contract could be carried out.

“Mom, come here!” Pete called through the kitchen door. “Just see what I can buy for ten cents. Here it is! A real live crow for a pet.”

“0 son, do you think you want that great, ugly bird for a pet?” a voice from inside asked.

“Sure I want him and what’s more I want you to give me the ten cents,” laughed Pete.

“Oh, I see,” said his mother, coming to the door. “I am to produce the cash for the transac¬ tion.”

After much persuading and coaxing, Pete’s mother said, “Well, I have heard that crows are very intelligent. I suppose you will have to have your own way, Pete. One thing, though, you must take all the care of him.”

And so I became the property of Pete and a member of Pete’s family.

Chapter III My New Home

A S soon as the deal was closed, and I was * properly turned over to Pete, Jim and his friends took their departure.

I began to look about to see what kind of a place I was in. I rather liked the looks of Pete and his mother. The other members of the family were a father, two sisters and a brother. The sisters and brother were small and seemed afraid of me, particularly when I opened my mouth for food, and flapped my wings at them. The “governor,” as Pete called his father, behind his. back, just grunted a little when he saw me. He didn’t seem to care much about me. He stuck his finger out at me when Pete carried me into the house for him to see. I reached out and bit him to show him there was no love lost.

“Oh, what a bite!” cried the “governor.”

Pete laughed and that made his father some¬ what cross.

“Get him out of here, or Pll wring his neck,” he said.

They didn’t put me in a cage, as I was afraid they would. I was given the freedom of the place. At first I spent most of my time sitting on a fence post, just looking about, getting acquainted with everybody and everything. From this post I could see everything that went on in the back yard, and I could also see up and down the street. I was much interested in everything that went on in the whole neighbor¬ hood.

Very soon my wings began to grow strong, and I could go wherever I pleased.

The first thing I did was to explore the whole place. Remember, I was a crow, and crows have a large bump of curiosity. My curiosity some¬ times got me into trouble.

The first thing I examined was an old dish pan that was set under the pump. I had seen Pete looking intently into it, and I wondered what could be so interesting. All I could see when I looked in was some small dark objects moving about in the water. What they were I found out later and relieved my master of the care of them; but that is a part of my story that will come by and by. I hopped into the pan and had a fine

MY NEW HOME bath. There was so much water in my feathers when I got through I could scarcely get out of the pan. Pete, seeing my predicament, set me on my fence post to dry. I shook and shook myself and was soon all right again.

While I was sitting there I saw a man and a woman coming down the street. I heard Pete telling Toughie that they were newly married and had rented a house in the neighborhood.

I waited until they were nearly opposite me; they hadn’t noticed me sitting on the post, and I sounded the alarm.

“Ah! ah!” I cried.

They both jumped, and the woman blushed as red as a beet.

The man looked around, scowling, until he saw me on the post. He nudged the woman and said to her, “That was only a crow. See it, there, on the post.”

Then they both laughed and told Pete they had thought some one was making fun of them.

I liked to sit there on the post and tell the family when anyone went by. I always sounded the alarm when a strange man, or a new dog or cat came into the neighborhood.

Another place aroused my curiosity. In the back yard was an old chicken house, which had been turned over to Pete to use as a pigeon cote.

As I grew older and stronger I had a great desire to visit this place.

I could see pigeons going in and out, and there was a constant cooing.

I heard Pete and Toughie talking about one old Dick Pigeon, as they worked on a new com¬ partment for the pigeon cote. From what I overheard I gathered that old Dick had been having trouble with his wife, Plum Pigeon. It seemed she had deserted her husband and babies and had set up housekeeping with one Bill Pigeon. Faithful old Dick was taking care of the two babies, but his mournful cooing was get¬ ting on Pete’s nerves.

“I have a notion to catch her and chop her head off,” Pete told Toughie.

“Why don’t you have your mother make her into a pigeon pie?” asked Toughie.

Toughie was always thinking of something to eat. He had no mother, and his father, like old Dick, was keeping house and taking care of his children.

MY NEW HOME

I walked round and round the box the boys were working on. The boys drove me away when they saw me putting their nails into a crack in the well platform.

“Hey, you, stop that!” Pete said.

I decided I wasn’t wanted there and flew to the door of the pigeon cote and hopped inside.

Oh, what a nice, interesting place it was! The walls were lined with boxes with doors in the front. I could see inside of them. In some there were old pigeons sitting on the nests; in others there were nests with two white eggs in them and still others held baby pigeons, some feathered and some not. As soon as I had stepped inside, the old pigeons had set up an excited cooing, but I paid no attention to them.

I went on peering into different compartments. At last I came to an interesting little house that held two babies about half grown. I was debat¬ ing whether or not to try pigeon brains as food when, bam! bam! something struck me, first on one side of the head and then on the other. I was completely knocked off the little porch on which I had been standing, and fell to the floor of the pigeon house.

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“Say, can’t old Dick fight!” said Toughie

MY NEW HOME

Before I had time to recover my senses it was after me again, beating me with gray wings and pecking me with a sharp beak. I finally got to my feet and made for the door as fast as I could, with that monster beating me all the way. I thought that if I could only reach Pete I would be safe; but I couldn’t make it. The thing got on my back and was beating me over the head with its wings. I didn’t know which way to go. I rolled over on my back and clawed the air with my feet.

The commotion had attracted the attention of Pete and Toughie and they came running to see the fight. They screamed with laughter when they saw me claw the air, and counted me out while I lay there, as a prize fighter is counted out.

“Say, can’t old Dick fight!” cried Toughie.

“He surely can!” replied Pete, “but it’s hardly fair to take his spite out on one so young.”

Old Dick went back to the pigeon house, chortling to himself and muttering what he would do to me if he ever caught me around his house again. I understood what he said, though I don’t speak pigeon. But I never gave him the chance he was looking for.

Chapter IV A New Name

P to this time I had been given no name.

I was called “the crow,” or “Pete’s crow.” This seemed to worry my master, though it gave me no concern. I could worry along, if need be, with no other name; but Pete wasn’t satisfied.

One evening I overheard the family talking about it as they sat at the supper table. I was walking around in the grass just outside.

I heard Pete say, “I want to give him a name that will be appropriate.”

“Well,” said his father, “if it is an appropriate name you want, you will have to name him for some thief. I never saw such a sly, thieving imp as he is. The other day, while I was at work in the garage, he flew to the work bench where I was working and tried to steal the very nails I was using. If he were a human, he would be a bandit or a highwayman.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” answered Pete. “The other day when Toughie and I were greasing the wagon wheels, we laid the cotter pins, that

A NEW NAME hold the wheels in place, on the well platform. Well, when we got ready to put the wheels on again, that crow had carried the cotter pins away; we haven’t found them all yet. He had hidden some of them in a crack in the well plat¬ form. He sure loves to hide things.”

“You might call him Pat Crow,” said Father. “There was once a notorious criminal by that name.”

“Oh, I hardly like that name,” his son replied, “though I have to admit it would seem quite appropriate.”

“Why not call him Blacky Daw, after George Randolph Chester’s famous character, Blacky Daw?” Mother offered.

“I think I like that name much better,” said Pete, and the conversation drifted to other things.

When Pete came out of the house he began calling me Blacky Daw, and from that time on I was Blacky Daw, or just plain Blacky. As far as color was concerned the name fitted me. I was black, there was no mistake about that. From the tip of my beak to the end of my tail I was one solid color; even my toenails were black. You have heard the saying, “black as a crow.” Well, I know of nothing any nearer one color than a crow. Only when I opened my beak could you see that I wasn’t black all the way through.

A few days after I had been named, Pete’s dad came home about the middle of the afternoon.

“What’s the big idea?” shouted Pete, as he ran out to the car.

“I think I’ll lay - off from work this afternoon and go fishing,” said his father.

“Are you going over to Davis City?” asked Pete.

“Yes, I think we will,” answered his father. “Willis is going with me.”

“Dad,” said Pete, in a very earnest and plead¬ ing tone, “if there is room in the car, can Toughie and I go, too?”

“Just whatever your mother says about that. I don’t care,” said Father.

“Hooray!” called Pete to Toughie, who for once happened to be at his own home across the street. “Dad says we can go fishing with him.”

“Hold on, young man, you haven’t asked your mother yet,” said his father.

A NEW NAME

: “Oh, I will,” Pete replied, * “but I know she "Will let me go.” And running into the house he shouted, “Mom! Mom! Dad said he would let me go fishing with him if you will just say I can; I can, can’t I, Mom?”

“Why, Pete, tomorrow is Sunday. What shall I say to your Sunday-school teacher, if she asks me why you are not there?” said Mother.

Pete’s face took on such a doleful expression that his mother had to laugh.

“Now, Mother,” pleaded Pete, “every time I want to do something, it’s Sunday, and I have to go to Sunday school instead.”

“No, Pete,” said his mother, “that isn’t true. I don’t want you to feel that way about Sunday school; some mothers would not think of letting their boys go fishing on Sunday. But you are my boy and I do with you as I please. Now, if you promise not to ask me again this year, I will let you go this time.”

“Come, Pete!” called his father, “if you are going, help me get ready.”

I was much interested in the preparations. A lot of stuff I had never seen before was brought out of the house and laid on the grass. I exammm.

“What a fine place to put things!”

A NEW NAME ined each article as it was put there. There was a nice, shiny lantern, and a net with large corks on one side and small leads on the other. I heard Pete’s dad say they would use minnows for bait, whatever that meant.

I tried to pull the leads off the net, but they were fastened on too tightly for me.

Then they brought out several rolls of strong cord, with hooks fastened to the ends of the cord. I tried to pull some of the hooks off, but couldn’t.

A large stone jug was the next thing they carried out. I tried the cork and found it was loose; I pulled the cork out and looked down into the jug. “My,” I thought, “what a fine place to put things!”

I looked about for something to put into the jug. A cinder path led to where the car stood.

“The very thing,” I said to myself, and began to drop cinders into the jug. I was having a good time when Pete’s dad saw me.

“Here, you Blacky Daw!” he cried and threw a stick at me. “Stop that, or I will wring your neck.”

I dodged the stick and flew to the limb in the old pine tree where I sat until they drove away.

Chapter V A Taste Of Fish

I T was rather lonesome after Pete and Toughie left. The little brother was there and rode his tricycle up and down the sidewalk, but he was no company for me, not like Pete and Toughie. Oh, my, no ! Whenever they were in the yard I was right with them, interested in everything they did.

The next day was Sunday. Mother took the children and went to Sunday school. I was dreadfully lonesome while they were gone. It seemed that every one else was gone from the neighborhood, too. The fat neighbor came out of her house, dressed in a bright blue dress with ruffles, got into her car and went to church.

Little Brother cried because he had to walk. He was used to being taken to church in the car, and it made him angry to think he couldn’t ride.

I put in the time looking about. I visited the fat neighbor’s front porch; there were flower pots set in a row along the edge. I examined these carefully and decided to use one of them

A TASTE OF FISH for my collection. I found the head of an old, dead sparrow and put it in there. I knew where there was a bit of blue glass and a brass button; I hunted these up and deposited them with the sparrow’s head.

There was a cushion on the seat of a rocking chair on the porch. I looked this all over to see if I could tear it apart, but it was made of good, strong cloth, so I gave up trying to see what was inside of it.

After a while Mother and the children came home, and things brightened up a bit.

About the middle of the afternoon the fisher¬ men returned.

Pete’s mother and the fat woman were sitting in the yard in the shade of the trees, for the day was hot.

Pete jumped out of the car and ran to where his mother and the fat neighbor were sitting.

“Mom, come and see what we have here,” he called to her.

Pete’s dad was untying a sack from the run¬ ning board of the car. The fat neighbor, Mother, myself and the children followed Father around the house. Father emptied the sack on the ground. Several long, slimy things fell out.

“Didn’t we have good luck!” said Pete’s dad. “Just look at this one. I’ll bet he weighs three pounds, and these two close to two and a half each; all channel cats, too. Say, but the fish were biting fine! I almost hated to come away when we did.”

“Yes, you certainly had good luck this time,” replied his wife. “This will make up for some of the times you have gone and caught nothing at all. But who is to clean the slimy things? That is usually my job, but I draw the line at doing it Sunday afternoon.”