Gray Lady opened one of the windows and looked out. Below stood Jacob, waving his hat to attract attention, saying through his hands, “There are some Screech Owls on a branch of the old willow back of the orchard, and the other birds have found it out. The Crows are mixing in and there’s a great how-de-do. I thought maybe you would all like to see them, only I couldn’t go up for fear they might shift away.” Of course they wished to see, and it was quite remarkable how fifteen usually noisy children managed to tiptoe through the orchard and avoid sticks and dry leaves. THE WISE OLD CROW Not all the people know The wisdom of the Crow: As they see him come and go, With verdict brief, They say, “You thief!” And wish him only woe. That he’s selfish we admit, But he has a lot of grit, And on favour not a bit Does he depend; Without a friend, He must live by mother-wit. The Crow is rather shy, With a very watchful eye For danger coming nigh, And any one Who bears a gun He’s pretty sure to spy. The clever farmer’s plan Is to make a sort of ban, By stuffing clothes with bran, Topped with a tile Of ancient style, —A funny old scarecrow man. The Crow looks on with scorn, And early in the morn Pulls up the farmer’s corn: He laughs at that, The queer old hat, Of the scarecrow man forlorn. —Garrett Newkirk, in _Bird-Lore_. XI THE FLIGHT OF THE BIRD _How do Birds find their Way?_[1] (Told at Foxes Corners School) “I was telling Grand’ther about how far away the birds go in the winter, and how they fly against the lighthouses and get killed,” said Tommy Todd, “and he said I couldn’t tell him anything about their going away and coming back, ’cause he’d seen that going on, boy and man, these seventy years. Grand’ther knows how the same kind of birds come back to the place every spring, ’cause he says there were Phœbe Birds had a nest on the end beam of the cowshed over where the last cow stands,—way back when he was learning to milk. Then when that old shed blew down, and they built a new one like it, back the birds came, and they are coming yet; first nest over Black Bess, and second nest way out over the box-pen where the little calves live. “What Grand’ther wants to know is how they find the way to go so far, and how they know where to stop and find something to eat, and if they get hungry, ’cause he says nobody seems to know just what they do between times, and what people do tell seems like Jack-and-the-Beanstalk fairy-stories, and he said maybe you had some book that told about it so’s you could explain.”