All at once the train set up a terrible noise. It seemed to Mr. Crow that it ground its teeth. And it came to a sudden stop, hissing as if it were very angry.
Old Mr. Crow was the least bit startled. He alighted in the top of a tall elm. And while he watched, two men jumped down from the engine and walked along the track for a while.
Then they crawled back into the engine; and the train went slowly on again.
"That's queer!" said Mr. Crow to himself. "I never saw that happen before. It looks to me as if the train was pretty angry because I beat it. And if that's the case, I'm coming back here to-morrow at the same hour and race the train again."
You can see just from that that Mr. Crow was something of a tease. All his life he had teased his neighbors. And now he felt more important than ever, because he thought he had found a way to tease a railroad train.
XIII
THE GAME OF CHECKERS
Mr. Crow told all his neighbors that he had made the train angry with him. And he invited everyone to come down to the village with him the following day, to enjoy the sport.
"I'm going to race the train again," Mr. Crow explained. "And I shall fly right in front of it, too—just as I did to-day. You'll see what a fuss it will make. And if you don't say it's a good joke, I'll never wear a checkered red coat again."
The next day Jasper Jay invited Mr. Crow to take part in a game of checkers. Whenever anybody in the neighborhood wanted to play checkers, he had to ask Mr. Crow, on account of having to use his checkered red coat for the board.