“I'll warn the Quacks to keep away from there. I'll do it the very first
thing in the morning,” he muttered, as he prepared to go to sleep. “If
they have any sense at all, they will stay in the pond of Paddy the
Beaver. But if they should go over to the Big River, they would be
almost sure to find that corn, and if they should once find it, they
would keep going back for more. It may be all right, but I don't like
the looks of it.”
And still full of suspicions, Blacky went to sleep.
CHAPTER XIX: Blacky Makes More Discoveries
Little things you fail to see
May important prove to be.
--Blacky the Crow.
One of the secrets of Blacky's success in life is the fact that he never
fails to take note of little things. Long ago he learned that little
things which in themselves seem harmless and not worth noticing may
together prove the most important things in life. So, no matter how
unimportant a thing may appear, Blacky examines it closely with those
sharp eyes of his and remembers it.
The very first thing Blacky did, as soon as he was awake the morning
after he discovered the man scattering corn in the rushes at a certain
place on the edge of the Big River, was to fly over to the pond of Paddy
the Beaver and again warn Mr. and Mrs. Quack to keep away from the Big
River, if they and their six children would remain safe. Then he got
some breakfast. He ate it in a hurry and flew straight over to the Big
River to the place where he had seen that yellow corn scattered.
Blacky wasn't wholly surprised to find Dusky the Black Duck, own cousin
to Mr. and Mrs. Quack the Mallard Ducks, with a number of his relatives
in among the rushes and wild rice at the very place where that corn had
been scattered. They seemed quite contented and in the best of spirits.
Blacky guessed why. Not a single grain of that yellow corn could Blacky
see. He knew the ways of Dusky and his relatives. He knew that they must
have come in there just at dusk the night before and at once had found
that corn. He knew that they would remain hiding there until frightened
out, and that then they would spend the day in some little pond where
they would not be likely to be disturbed or where at least no danger
could approach them without being seen in plenty of time. There they
would rest all day, and when the Black Shadows came creeping out from
the Purple Hills, they would return to that place on the Big River to
feed, for that is the time when they like best to hunt for their food.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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