“There is a great bird upon the top of it,” said Stuyvesant.
“Yes,” said Beechnut, “it is a crow. Now you must keep the oxen headed directly for that tree. Go as straight as you can, and I shall try to keep the plow straight behind you. The thing is to make a straight furrow.”
When all was ready, Stuyvesant gave the word to his oxen to move on, and they began to draw. Stuyvesant went on, keeping his eye alternately upon the oxen and upon the tree. He had some curiosity to look round and see how Beechnut was getting along with the furrow, but he recollected that his business was to drive, and so he gave his whole attention to his driving, in order that he might go as straight as possible across the field.
The crow flew away when he had got half across the field. He had a strong desire to know where she was going to fly to, but he did not look round to follow her in her flight. He went steadily on attending to his driving.
When he was about two thirds across the field, he saw a stump at a short distance before him, with a small hornet’s nest upon one side of it. His course would lead him, he saw, very near this nest. His first impulse was to stop the oxen and tell Beechnut about the hornet’s nest. He did in fact hesitate a moment, but he was instantly reassured by hearing Beechnut call out to him from behind, saying,
“Never mind the hornet’s nest, Stuyvesant. Drive the oxen right on. I don’t think the hornets will sting them.”
Stuyvesant perceived by this, that Beechnut thought only of the oxen, when he saw a hornet’s nest, and he concluded to follow his example in this respect. So he drove steadily on.
When they got to the end of the field the oxen stopped. Beechnut and Stuyvesant then looked round to see the furrow. It was very respectably straight.