“If I could catch one maybe I could tame it and teach it tricks,” replied the boy. “And then I could sell it to Mr. Jenk in place of his lame, tame crow that flew away.”
“He’d pay us a lot of money,” added Janet, who had been talked into this plan by her eager brother.
“I guess you’ll have a lot of trouble catching a crow,” laughed their mother. “And even if you do get one, you could never tame it. Now don’t get into danger,” she added, as they walked off through the trees.
“We’ll be careful,” they promised.
And they really meant to. It only goes to show that you never can tell what will happen in the woods.
At first Ted had an idea that it would be easy to catch a crow. He had made a sort of trap from a box that could be turned upside down and held raised at one end with a stick. To the stick was fastened a string. Ted thought it was a fine trap.
“I’ll raise the box,” he explained to Janet, “and I’ll put some corn under it. Crows like corn. I’ll be hiding off in the bushes with the end of the string in my hand. Then when a crow goes under the box to get the corn, I’ll pull the string and down will come the box.”
“I see!” cried Janet. “And the crow will be under it.”
“Yes,” agreed Ted, “the crow will be under it and we can take him out and tame him.”
But it was not as easy as it sounded. In the first place crows seemed very scarce that day. And it was not until the Curlytops had tramped over a mile that they heard the distant cawing of one.