Farmer's Scarecrow Protects A Corn-field
: Daddy's Bedtime Bird Stories"To-night," said daddy, "we are going to have the story of the meeting
of the brownies, crows, and old Mr. Scarecrow. The crows had been giving
feasts in a corn-field almost every morning bright and early before any
of the big people who lived in the nearby farm-house were up. Such
feasts as they did have! And one day they asked the brownies if they
wouldn't come to their next one.
"'Caw-caw,' said the cr
"'Where are we going?' asked one of the brownies teasingly, for they had
been going around and around in circles and hadn't reached any place.
"'I don't quite know,' said Black Crown Crow, 'it's a question which is
very hard to decide.'
"'But we thought you had chosen a special spot,' said one of the
brownies.
"Black Crown Crow looked very sad, and his black wings seemed to droop.
'It's that guest I never asked. He's causing all the trouble. How very
rude it is of folks to come to a feast who aren't invited, and to arrive
before us, too. It's very e-x-a-s-p-e-r-a-t-i-n-g!'
"'Who is he?' shouted the brownies, for every little while Black Crown
Crow had gone ahead and then had come back. In these little trips he had
seen right in the center of the corn-field a man--a real man, he
thought, with a hat and a coat and trousers and boots--and carrying
something which he couldn't quite make out. It was either a great huge
stick--or worse still--it was a gun. He shivered whenever he thought of
that awful word gun.
"'Caw-caw,' again shrieked Black Crown Crow, 'it's a man and he has a
gun--I'm sure it's a gun. Now the rudeness of him! As if we wanted a
man and a gun at our corn feast!'
"'Oh, it was to have been a corn feast, and now the man has stopped it,'
laughed one of the brownies. 'Well, such a joke! But to show you how
nice we'll be when we're here ready for a party which can't take place,
we'll give a nice party ourselves.'
"And the brownies scampered about a little grove near the corn-field,
and there they made a bonfire over which they cooked some corn-meal
which they had carried with them in their bags. They knew all along,
ever since they'd started, where the crows wanted them to go for the
feast, and they also knew that the farmer had made that scarecrow in his
corn-field to frighten off Black Crown Crow and his followers.
"The brownies made a fine feast, but how they did chuckle among
themselves that the pole dressed up as a man had succeeded in saving
the corn for the people of the farm-house."
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