Bird Stories

by Edith M. Patch

But a basin, however bright, is not enough to keep a crow in the dooryard; for a crow is a bird of adventure.

So it was that on a certain day Corbie flew over the cornfield and over the tree-tops to the river; and so quiet were his wings, that the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl did not hear his coming, and they both jumped when he perched upon a tiny rock near by and screamed, "Caw," quite suddenly, as one child says, "Boo," to another, to surprise him. Then the bird sang his chatter tune, and found a shallow place near the bank, where he splashed and bathed. After that, the Blue-eyed Girl showed him a little water-snail. He turned it over in his beak and dropped it. It meant no more to him than a pebble. "I think you'll like to eat it, Corbie," said the Brown-eyed Boy, breaking the shell and giving it to him again; "even people eat snails, I've heard."

Corbie took the morsel and swallowed it, and soon was cracking for himself all the snails his comrades gave him. But that was not enough, for their eyes were only the eyes of children and his bright bird eyes could find them twice as fast. So he waded in the river, playing "I spy" with his foster brother and sister, and beating them, too, at the game, though they had hunted snails as many summers as he had minutes.

He enjoyed doing many of the same things the children did. It was that, and his sociable, merry ways, that made him such a good playfellow, and because he wanted them to be happy in his pleasure and to praise his clever tricks. Like other children, eating when he was hungry gave him joy, and at times he made a game of it that was fun for them all. Every now and then he would go off quietly by himself, and fill the hollow of his throat with berries from the bushes near the river-bank and, flying back to his friends, would spill out his fruit, uncrushed, in a little pile beside them while he crooned and chuckled about it. He seemed to have the same sort of good time picking berries in his throat cup and showing how many he had found that the children did in seeing which could first fill a tin cup before they sat down on the rocks to eat them.

One day the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl were down by the river, hunting for pearls. A pearl-hunter had shown them how to open freshwater clamshells without killing the clams. Suddenly Corbie walked up and, taking one of these hard-shelled animals right out of their hands, he flew high overhead and dropped it down on the rocks near by. Of course that broke the shell and of course Corbie came down and ate the clam, without needing any vinegar or butter on it to make it taste good to him. How he learned to do this, the children never knew. Perhaps he found out by just happening to drop one he was carrying, or perhaps he saw the wild crows drop their clams to break the shells: for after nesting season they used often to come down from the mountainside to fish by the river for snails and clams and crayfish, when they were not helping the farmers by eating up insects in the fields.

Corbie liked the crayfish, too, as well as people like lobsters and crabs, and he had many an exciting hunt, poking under the stones for them and pulling them out with his strong beak.

There seemed to be no end of things Corbie could do with that beak of his. Sometimes it was a little crowbar for lifting stones or bits of wood when he wanted to see what was underneath; for as every outdoor child, either crow or human, knows, very, very interesting things live in such places. Sometimes it was a spade for digging in the dirt. Sometimes it was a pick for loosening up old wood in the hollow tree where he kept his best treasures. Sometimes it worked like a nut-cracker, sometimes like a pair of forceps, and sometimes—oh, you can think of a dozen tools that beak of Corbie's was like. He was as well off as if he had a whole carpenter's chest with him all the time. But mostly it served like a child's thumb and forefinger, to pick berries, or to untie the bright hair-ribbons of the Blue-eyed Girl or the shoe-laces of the Brown-eyed Boy. And once in a long, long while, when some stupid child or Grown-Up, who did not know how to be civil to a crow, used him roughly, his beak became a weapon with which to pinch and to strike until his enemy was black and blue. For Corbie learned, as every sturdy person must, in some way or other, how to protect himself when there was need.

Yes, Corbie's beak was wonderful. Of course, lips are better on people in many ways than beaks would be; but we cannot do one tenth so many things with our mouths as Corbie could with his. To be sure, we do not need to, for we have hands to help us out. If our arms had grown into wings, though, as a bird's arms do, how should we ever get along in this world?

Corbie slipped off and amused himself.