First she looked all around, then she laughed again, this time so loud and long that Mr. Fox thought she never would have done, and at last she exclaimed:
"Why, Mr. Fox, the crows are black for just the same reason that you ought to be black and I ought to be black too."
At this Mr. Fox was puzzled, but as Mrs. Owl seemed to think it such a joke he joined in her laughter, and between them they made the most distressing noise.
"You see," she said at last, while she held her sides and caught her breath. "You see, the whole miserable lot of them, the crows, used to be as bright and giddy as overgrown humming-birds. Red, white, and blue, they were. They would have been the national bird, I'm told, but the eagle always takes that honor by his overbearing ways. For my part, such honors are doubtful. I'd rather stand for wisdom than for politics. But, be that as it may, the crows were once the gayest of the birds. It was their mad career of theft and murder which brought the change."
At this they both screamed with laughter again, and it was a long time before Mrs. Owl could resume her story.
"Complaints against the crows came from everywhere. The robins—bless their souls—the larks, the pigeons, and every family you ever heard of, were determined to do something to the crows for snatching their young ones and stealing their eggs.
"Of course, you know, similar complaints have been lodged against me," she added; "but the point is, my family was never caught. Besides, the crows get corn and such to eat, and the whole world felt that the crow was stepping out of his class, you know, when he took to eating birds and eggs and frogs. It was the greediness of an upstart family. That's what it was."
The very thought of this aspect of the case made Mrs. Owl so indignant that she screamed and hooted loud and long.
"It was all long, long ago," she said. "The birds met in a great meeting. Something had to be done, and it was thought that war would be declared and the crows would all be killed or driven to live on a lonely island. But somebody, Mrs. Yellowhammer, I think it was, put in a word in their favor. She was a tender-hearted fool and recalled something decent the crows had done. She said that they had left her a lot of acorns one cold winter, and she felt so much obliged to them. The crows would have been done to death except for what she said. There were two doves on the jury, too; and they're a weak and sentimental lot, you know. At any rate, the sentence which the judge, a wonderful old owl, pronounced, was to the effect that the crows must forever go in black. They had to fly all the way to Egypt, where the little people live, to get their clothes changed.