"Is there something in your eye?" Mr. Crow inquired in his coldest manner.
Mr. Red-winged Blackbird had no wish to make Mr. Crow angry. So he stopped winking at once.
"When you see your friend Bobby Bobolink you'd better tell him to leave the corn strictly alone," Mr. Crow remarked. "Farmer Green expects to be[p. 8]gin planting in about three weeks. And he counts on me to watch the field for him. If I catch Bobby Bobolink there he'll wish he had stayed in the rice fields, down South."
Mr. Red-winged Blackbird smiled. And he told old Mr. Crow not to worry.
"Bobby Bobolink won't touch the corn," he said. "During the first half of the summer he lives on such things as caterpillars and grasshoppers, with a bit of grass-seed now and then."
Old Mr. Crow replied that he was glad to know that.
"He's wise to leave the corn alone," he added. "If Farmer Green was on the lookout for him—with a gun handy—Bobby Bobolink wouldn't act so care-free as he generally does. He wouldn't sing such rollicking songs in the meadow. And now that you've mentioned how he spends[p. 9] his springs in the South, I don't wonder that he appears glad to get to Pleasant Valley. For you may well believe that folks are not so fond of him down there where the rice grows. And unless I'm much mistaken the planters actually order him out of their fields."
Mr. Red-winged Blackbird told Mr. Crow that he hadn't a doubt that everything Mr. Crow said was so. And he was just about to remark that he should think Mr. Crow must lead a care-free, happy-go-lucky life in winter, in the South, because Farmer Green always stayed in Pleasant Valley the whole year round. But as he opened his bill to speak he heard a sound over in the meadow that made him forget what was on the tip of his tongue.
"Did you hear that song?" he cried. "Hurrah!"
Old Mr. Crow cocked his head on one[p. 10] side and listened. "Yes!" he agreed. "There's no doubt about it. Bobby Bobolink is here at last!"