CHAPTER XI: Farmer Brown's Boy Is Tempted
When you're tempted to do wrong
Is the time to prove you're strong.
Shut your eyes and clench each fist;
It will help you to resist.
When a bird is found sitting on a nest, it is a pretty sure sign that that nest holds something worth while. It is a sign that that bird has set up housekeeping. So when Farmer Brown's boy discovered Mrs. Hooty sitting so close on the old nest of Redtail the Hawk, in the most lonesome corner of the Green Forest, he knew what it meant. Perhaps I should say that he knew what it ought to mean.
It ought to mean that there were eggs in that nest.
But it was hard for Farmer Brown's boy to believe that. Why, spring had not come yet! There was still snow, and the Smiling Pool was still covered with ice. Who ever heard of birds nesting at this time of year? Certainly not Farmer Brown's boy. And yet Hooty the Owl and Mrs. Hooty were acting for all the world as feathered folks do act when they have eggs and are afraid that something is going to happen to them. It was very puzzling.
“That nest was built by Red-tail the Hawk, and it hasn't even been repaired,” muttered Farmer Brown's boy, as he stared up at it. “If Hooty and his wife have taken it for their home, they are mighty poor housekeepers. And if Mrs. Hooty has laid eggs this time of year, she must be crazy. I suppose the way to find out is to climb up there. It seems foolish, but I'm going to do it. Those Owls certainly act as if they are mighty anxious about something, and I'm going to find out what it is.”
He looked at Hooty and Mrs. Hooty, at their hooked bills and great claws, and decided that he would take a stout stick along with him. He had no desire to feel these great claws. When he had found a stick to suit him, he began to climb the tree. Hooty and Mrs. Hooty snapped their bills and hissed fiercely. They drew nearer. Farmer Brown's boy kept a watchful eye on them. They looked so big and fierce that he was almost tempted to give up and leave them in peace. But he just had to find out if there was anything in that nest, so he kept on. As he drew near it, Mrs. Hooty swooped very near to him, and the snap of her bill made an ugly sound. He held his stick ready to strike and kept on.
The nest was simply a great platform of sticks. When Farmer Brown's boy reached it, he found that he could not get where he could look into it, so he reached over and felt inside. Almost at once his fingers touched something that made him tingle all over. It was an egg, a great big egg! There was no doubt about it. It was just as hard for him to believe as it had been for Blacky the Crow to believe, when he first saw those eggs. Farmer Brown's boy's fingers closed over that egg and took it out of the nest. Mrs. Hooty swooped very close, and Farmer Brown's boy nearly dropped the egg as he struck at her with his stick. Then Mrs. Hooty and Hooty seemed to lose courage and withdrew to a tree near by, where they snapped their bills and hissed.
Then Farmer Brown's boy looked at the prize in his hand. It was a big, dirty-white egg. His eyes shone. What a splendid prize to add to his collection of birds' eggs! It was the first egg of the Great Horned Owl, the largest of all Owls, that he ever had seen.
Once more he felt in the nest and found there was another egg there. “I'll take both of them,” said he. “It's the first nest of Hooty's that I've ever found, and perhaps I'll never find another. Gee, I'm glad I came over here to find out what those Crows were making such a fuss about. I wonder if I can get these down without breaking them.”
Just at that very minute he remembered something. He remembered that he had stopped collecting eggs. He remembered that he had resolved never to take another bird's egg.
“But this is different,” whispered the tempter. “This isn't like taking the eggs of the little song birds.”
CHAPTER XII: A Tree-Top Battle
As black is black and white is white,
So wrong is wrong and right is right.
There isn't any half way about it. A thing is wrong or it is right, and that is all there is to it. But most people have hard work to see this when they want very much to do a thing that the still small voice way down inside tells them isn't right. They try to compromise. To compromise is to do neither one thing nor the other but a little of both. But you can't do that with right and wrong. It is a queer thing, but a half right never is as good as a whole right, while a half wrong often, very often, is as bad as a whole wrong.
Farmer Brown's boy, up in the tree by the nest of Hooty the Owl in the lonesome corner of the Green Forest, was fighting a battle. No, he wasn't fighting with Hooty or Mrs. Hooty. He was fighting a battle right inside himself. It was a battle between right and wrong. Once upon a time he had taken great delight in collecting the eggs of birds, in trying to see how many kinds he could get. Then as he had come to know the little forest and meadow people better, he had seen that taking the eggs of birds is very, very wrong, and he had stopped stealing them. He bad declared that never again would he steal an egg from a bird.
But never before had he found a nest of Hooty the Owl. Those two big eggs would add ever so much to his collection. “Take 'em,” said a little voice inside. “Hooty is a robber. You will be doing a kindness to the other birds by taking them.”
“Don't do it,” said another little voice. “Hooty may be a robber, but he has a place in the Green Forest, or Old Mother Nature never would have put him here. It is just as much stealing to take his eggs as to take the eggs of any other bird. He has just as much right to them as Jenny Wren has to hers.”
“Take one and leave one,” said the first voice.
“That will be just as much stealing as if you took both,” said the second voice. “Besides, you will be breaking your own word. You said that you never would take another egg.”
“I didn't promise anybody but myself,” declared Farmer Brown's boy right out loud. At the sound of his voice, Hooty and Mrs. Hooty, sitting in the next tree, snapped their bills and hissed louder than ever.
“A promise to yourself ought to be just as good as a promise to any one else. I don't wonder Hooty hisses at you,” said the good little voice.
“Think how fine those eggs will look in your collection and how proud you will be to show them to the other fellows who never have found a nest of Hooty's,” said the first little voice.
“And think how mean and small and cheap you'll feel every time you look at them,” added the good little voice. “You'll get a lot more fun if you leave them to hatch out and then watch the little Owls grow up and learn all about their ways. Just think what a stout, brave fellow Hooty is to start housekeeping at this time of year, and how wonderful it is that Mrs. Hooty can keep these eggs warm and when they have hatched take care of the baby Owls before others have even begun to build their nests. Besides, wrong is wrong and right is right, always.”
Slowly Farmer Brown's boy reached over the edge of the nest and put back the egg. Then he began to climb down the tree. When he reached the ground he went off a little way and watched. Almost at once Mrs. Hooty flew to the nest and settled down on the eggs, while Hooty mounted guard close by.
“I'm glad I didn't take 'em,” said Farmer Brown's boy. “Yes, Sir, I'm glad I didn't take 'em.”
As he turned back toward home, he saw Blacky the Crow flying over the Green Forest, and little did he guess how he had upset Blacky's plans.
CHAPTER XIII: Blacky Has A Change Of Heart
Blacky The Crow isn't all black. No, indeed. His coat is black, and sometimes it seems as if his heart is all black, but this isn't so. It certainly seemed as if his heart was all black when he tried so hard to make trouble for Hooty the Owl. It would seem as if only a black heart could have urged him to try so hard to steal the eggs of Hooty and Mrs. Hooty, but this wasn't really so. You see, it didn't seem at all wrong to try to get those eggs. Blacky was hungry, and those eggs would have given him a good meal. He knew that Hooty wouldn't hesitate to catch him and eat him if he had the chance, and so it seemed to him perfectly right and fair to steal Hooty's eggs if he was smart enough to do so. And most of the other little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows would have felt the same way about it. You see, it is one of the laws of Old Mother Nature that each one must learn to look out for himself.
But when Blacky showed that nest of Hooty's to Farmer Brown's boy with the hope that Farmer Brown's boy would steal those eggs, there was blackness in his heart. He was doing something then which was pure meanness. He was just trying to make trouble for Hooty, to get even because Hooty had been too smart for him. He had sat in the top of a tall pine-tree where he could see all that happened, and he had chuckled wickedly as he had seen Farmer Brown's boy climb to Hooty's nest and take out an egg. He felt sure that he would take both eggs. He hoped so, anyway.
When he saw Farmer Brown's boy put the eggs back and climb down the tree without any, he had to blink his eyes to make sure that he saw straight. He just couldn't believe what he saw. At first he was dreadfully disappointed and angry. It looked very much as if he weren't going to get even with Hooty after all. He flew over to his favorite tree to think things over. Now sometimes it is a good thing to sit by oneself and think things over. It gives the little small voice deep down inside a chance to be heard. It was just that way with Blacky now.
The longer he thought, the meaner his action in calling Farmer Brown's boy looked. It was one thing to try to steal those eggs himself, but it was quite another matter to try to have them stolen by some one against whom Hooty had no protection whatever.
“If it had been any one but Hooty, you would have done your best to have kept Farmer Brown's boy away,” said the little voice inside. Blacky hung his head. He knew that it was true. More than once, in fact many times, he had warned other feathered folks when Farmer Brown's boy had been hunting for their nests, and had helped to lead him away.
At last Blacky threw up his head and chuckled, and this time his chuckle was good to hear. “I'm glad that Farmer Brown's boy didn't take those eggs,” said he right out loud. “Yes, sir, I'm glad. I'll never do such a thing as that again. I'm ashamed of what I did; yet I'm glad I did it. I'm glad because I've learned some things. I've learned that Farmer Brown's boy isn't as much to be feared as he used to be. I've learned that Hooty isn't as stupid as I thought he was. I've learned that while it may be all right for us people of the Green Forest to try to outwit each other we ought to protect each other against common dangers. And I've learned something I didn't know before, and that is that Hooty the Owl is the very first of us to set up housekeeping. Now I think I'll go hunt for an honest meal.” And he did.
CHAPTER XIV: Blacky Makes A Call
Judge no one by his style of dress;
Your ignorance you thus confess.
—Blacky the Crow.
“Caw, caw, caw, caw.” There was no need of looking to see who that was. Peter Rabbit knew without looking. Mrs. Quack knew without looking. Just the same, both looked up. Just alighting in the top of a tall tree was Blacky the Crow. “Caw, caw, caw, caw,” he repeated, looking down at Peter and Mrs. Quack and Mr. Quack and the six young Quacks. “I hope I am not interrupting any secret gossip.”
“Not at all,” Peter hastened to say. “Mrs. Quack was just telling me of the troubles and clangers in bringing up a young family in the Far North. How did you know the Quacks had arrived?”
Blacky chuckled hoarsely. “I didn't,” said he. “I simply thought there might be something going on I didn't know about over here in the pond of Paddy the Beaver, so I came over to find out. Mr. Quack, you and Mrs. Quack are looking very fine this fall. And those handsome young Quacks, you don't mean to tell me that they are your children!”
Mrs. Quack nodded proudly. “They are,” said she.
“You don't say so!” exclaimed Blacky, as if he were very much surprised, when all the time he wasn't surprised at all. “They are a credit to their parents. Yes, indeed, they are a credit to their parents. Never have I seen finer young Ducks in all my life. How glad the hunters with terrible guns will be to see them.”
Mrs. Quack shivered at that, and Blacky saw it. He chuckled softly. You know he dearly loves to make others uncomfortable. “I saw three hunters over on the edge of the Big River early this very morning,” said he.
Mrs. Quack looked more anxious than ever. Blacky's sharp eyes noted this.
“That is why I came over here,” he added kindly. “I wanted to give you warning.”
“But you didn't know the Quacks were here!” spoke up Peter.
“True enough, Peter. True enough,” replied Blacky, his eyes twinkling. “But I thought they might be. I had heard a rumor that those who go south are traveling earlier than usual this fall, so I knew I might find Mr. and Mrs. Quack over here any time now. Is it true, Mrs. Quack, that we are going to have a long, hard, cold winter?”
“That is what they say up in the Far North,” replied Mrs. Quack. “And it is true that Jack Frost had started down earlier than usual. That is how it happens we are here now. But about those hunters over by the Big River, do you suppose they will come over here?” There was an anxious note in Mrs. Quack's voice.
“No,” replied Blacky promptly. “Farmer Brown's boy won't let them. I know. I've been watching him and he has been watching those hunters. As long as you stay here, you will be safe. What a great world this would be if all those two-legged creatures were like Farmer Brown's boy.”
“Wouldn't it!” cried Peter. Then he added, “I wish they were.”
“You don't wish it half as much as I do,” declared Mrs. Quack.
“Yet I can remember when he used to hunt with a terrible gun and was as bad as the worst of them,” said Blacky.
“What changed him?” asked Mrs. Quack, looking interested.
“Just getting really acquainted with some of the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows,” replied Blacky. “He found them ready to meet him more than halfway in friendship and that some of them really are his best friends.”
“And now he is their best friend,” spoke up Peter.
Blacky nodded. “Right, Peter,” said he. “That is why the Quacks are safe here and will be as long as they stay.”