The weeks passed by. A happy time for Corbie, whether he played with the children or slipped off and amused himself, as he had a way of doing now and then, after he grew old enough to feel independent. The world for him was full of adventure and joy. He never once asked, "What can I do now to amuse me?" Never once. His brain was so active that he could fill every place and every hour full to the brim of interest. He had a merry way about him, and a gay chatter that seemed to mean, "Oh, life to a crow is joy! JOY!" And because of all this, it was not only the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl who loved him. He won the hearts of even the Grown-Ups, who had sometimes found it hard to be patient with him during the first noisy days, when he tired them with his frequent baby "kah-and-gubble," before he could feed himself.
But, however bold and dashing he was during the day, whatever the sunny hours had held of mirth and dancing, whichever path he had trod or flown, whomever he had chummed with—when it was the time of dusk, little Corbie sought the one he loved best of all, the one who had been most gentle with him, and snuggling close to the side of the Blue-eyed Girl, tucked his head into her sleeve or under the hem of her skirt, and crooned his sleepy song which seemed to mean:—
Oh! soft and warm the crow in the nest
Finds the fluff of his mother's breast.
Oh! well he sleeps, for she folds him tight—
Safe from the owl that flies by night.
Oh! far her wings have fluttered away,
Nor does it matter in the day.
But keep me, pray, till again 't is light,
Safe from the owl that flies by night.
Thus, long after he would have been weaned, for his own good, from such care, had he remained wild, Corbie, the tame crow, claimed protection with cunning, cuddling ways that taught the Blue-eyed Girl and her brother and the Grown-Ups, too, something about crows that many people never even guess. For all their rollicking care-free ways, there is, hidden beneath their black feathers, an affection very tender and lasting; and when they are given the friendship of humans, they find touching ways of showing how deep their trust can be.
Before the summer was over, Corbie had as famous a collection as his great grandfather. The children knew where he kept it, and used sometimes to climb up to look at his playthings. They never disturbed them except to take out the knitting-needle, thimble, spoons, or things like that, which were needed in the house. The bright penny someone had given him, the shiny nails, the brass-headed tacks, the big white feather, the yellow marble, all the bits of colored glass, and an old watch, they left where he put them; for they thought that he loved his things, or he would not have hidden them together; and they thought, and so do I, that he had as much right to his treasures to look at and care for as the Brown-eyed Boy had to his collection of pretty stones and the Blue-eyed Girl to the flowers in her wild garden.
After his feathers were grown, in the spring, Corbie had been really good-looking in his black suit; but by the first of September he was homely again. His little side-feather moustache dropped out at the top of his beak, so that his nostrils were uncovered as they had been when he was very young. The back of his head was nearly bald, and his neck and breast were ragged and tattered.
Yes, Corbie was molting, and he had a very unfinished sort of look while the new crop of paint-brushes sprouted out all over him. But it was worth the discomforts of the molt to have the new feather coat, all shiny black; and Corbie was even handsomer than he had been during the summer, when cold days came, and he needed his warm thick suit.
At this time all the wild crows that had nested in that part of the country flew every night from far and wide to the famous crow-roost, not far from a big peach orchard. They came down from the mountain that showed like a long blue ridge against the sky. They flew across a road that looked, on account of the color of the dirt, like a pinkish-red ribbon stretching off and away. They left the river-edge and the fields. Every night they gathered together, a thousand or more of them. Corbie's father and mother were among them, and Corbie's two brothers and two sisters. But Corbie was not with those thousand crows.
No cage held him, and no one prevented his flying whither he wished; but Corbie stayed with the folk who had adopted him. A thousand wild crows might come and go, calling in their flight, but Corbie, though free, chose for his comrades the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl.