Tommy Smith did this, and then, what should he see, standing on the very top of the haystack, but a large black rook. “Why, where were you?” he said. “I did not see you there when I looked.”
“No,” the rook said; “I hid myself under a little loose hay, for I did not want a stone thrown at me. I saw you coming, and I knew very well what you wanted to do, so I thought I would wait till you came, and then give you a good talking to. And, indeed, a naughty boy like you, who wants to kill rooks, ought to be scolded.”
“I don’t see why it is so naughty,” answered Tommy Smith; “I have always thrown stones at the rooks, and nobody has ever told me not to.”
“That is just why I have come to tell you how wrong it is,” said the rook. “Would you like anybody to throw stones at you?”
Tommy Smith had to confess that he would not like that at all.
“Then, do you not know,” the rook went on, looking very grave, “that you ought to do the same to other people that you would like other people to do to you? Have not your father and mother taught you that?”
“Oh yes, they have,” said Tommy Smith; “but I don’t think they meant animals.”
“They ought to have meant them,” said the rook, “whether they did or not, for animals have feelings as well as human beings. If you are kind to them, they are happy; but if you are unkind to them and hurt them, then they are unhappy. An animal, you know, is a living being like yourself, and surely it is better to make any living being happy than to make it unhappy.”
Tommy Smith looked rather ashamed when he heard this, and did not quite know what to say. He thought the rook spoke as if he were preaching a sermon, and then he remembered having heard some old country people talk of “Parson Rook.” Still, what he said seemed to be sensible, and all he could say, at last, as an answer was, “Oh, it’s all very well, but you know you rooks do a great deal of harm.”
“That shows how little you know about us,” answered the rook. “We do not do harm, but good; and if the farmers knew how much good we did them, they would think us their best friends.”