BY HELEN WHITNEY CLARK.
We children had been wishing for a tame crow ever since reading Dickens’ charming description of his pet raven. There were no ravens where we lived; but Brother Tom said crows were just as good, and could be taught to talk, too.
And one day, when we were playing “Here we go round the mulberry bush” in the woods near the house, little Ikey, our colored washerwoman’s boy, came along with a live crow in his hands.
Of course we were curious to see and examine the wonderful bird, and we crowded around Ikey, who seemed bewildered at being the object of so much attention.
“Where did you get him?” “What you going to do with him?” “How much will you take for him?” asked Tom, Josie and Fred, in one breath.
But Ikey only grinned, as he answered each in turn.
“Got him out of his nest in a post-oak. Dey was more of ’em, but I couldn’t git ony dis one. I’m a-gwine to raise him if mammy’ll let me. But I mout sell him, if I git a good chance.”
The opportunity was not to be lost, and in a very few moments Ikey was trudging homeward with a handful of coppers and two nickels—all the change we could raise among us, and we proudly carried our new-found treasure to the house.