The Tale of Old Mr. Crow

X

A QUEER TOAD­STOOL

Mr. Crow did ex­act­ly as he said he would. Af­ter the time he was caught out in the show­er and got wet he nev­er went even the short­est dis­tance away from home with­out his um­brel­la. And he wouldn't even let any­body take his um­brel­la, in or­der to look at it.

“It might rain sud­den­ly,” Mr. Crow ex­plained. “I might be soaked be­fore I knew it--and you know that's very dan­ger­ous for one of my age.”

It was not many days be­fore there was an­oth­er thun­der-​show­er. And this time Mr. Crow was ready for it. As soon as he felt the first drops he spread his um­brel­la and raised it above his head. At last he was very, very hap­py. For the first time in his life he was go­ing to see what it was like to stay out in the rain with­out get­ting wet.

Now, it hadn't rained long be­fore Jasper Jay came hur­ry­ing up to Mr. Crow, where he sat on Farmer Green's fence, and crawled un­der the um­brel­la close be­side the old gen­tle­man.

“You don't mind, I hope?” said Jasper Jay.

“Well--n-​no!” said Mr. Crow. “It's a big um­brel­la, for­tu­nate­ly. But I hope no one else comes along.”

The words were hard­ly out of his bill when Mr. Crow no­ticed a slim, gray fel­low, with a bushy tail, bound­ing to­ward them on top of the fence.

It was Frisky Squir­rel. And he crept close to Mr. Crow, un­der the um­brel­la, say­ing:

“You don't mind, I hope?”

“N-​no!” replied Mr. Crow. With Frisky on one side of him and Jasper Jay on the oth­er Mr. Crow thought that maybe he could keep dri­er be­cause they were there. But he hoped no one else would pass that way.

Well, some one did. Be­fore Mr. Crow knew what had hap­pened, a voice said--right over his shoul­der:

“You don't mind, I hope?”

It was Fat­ty Coon! And Mr. Crow cer­tain­ly did mind--though he didn't dare say so. In the first place, Mr. Crow was afraid of Fat­ty Coon. And in the sec­ond place, Fat­ty was so big that he crowd­ed Mr. Crow al­most off the fence.

Old Mr. Crow found it very hard to hold the um­brel­la straight and cling to the fence-​rail at the same time. And some­thing seemed to have made the um­brel­la very heavy. In spite of all he could do, it would tilt. And Mr. Crow crouched un­der the edge of it, right where the rain poured off. The wa­ter dripped in­side his col­lar and ran down his back un­til he was soaked through and through.

Pret­ty soon Mr. Crow be­gan to sneeze. At first he sneezed quite soft­ly. But ev­ery time it hap­pened he sneezed hard­er than the time be­fore. And at last he sneezed so vi­olent­ly that he lost his hold on the fence and went tum­bling down to the ground, with the um­brel­la, Jasper Jay, Fat­ty Coon and Frisky Squir­rel on top of him.

As they fell, a huge, long-​legged fel­low named Christo­pher Crane alight­ed on the fence, on the very spot where they had been sit­ting, and laughed loud­ly at them.

“What's the joke?” Mr. Crow asked in an an­gry voice, as he picked him­self up. “I don't see any­thing to laugh at.”

“Joke?” said Christo­pher Crane. “The joke's on me. I thought that thing you have in your hand was a new kind of toad­stool, grow­ing on the fence. And here I've been sit­ting on it all this time and nev­er knew you chaps were un­der it!”

At that, ev­ery­body ex­cept Mr. Crow be­gan to laugh, too. But Mr. Crow coughed; and his voice was hoars­er than, ev­er as he said to Christo­pher Crane:

“I'm wet as I can be. And I've caught a ter­ri­ble cold. You're a wa­ter-​bird; and you don't mind a wet­ting. But for one of my age it's very dan­ger­ous.”

Then he start­ed home­ward. Though it was still rain­ing, he tucked his um­brel­la un­der his wing, for he was afraid those rude fel­lows would crowd un­der it again.

And be­fore he had reached his house Mr. Crow had made up his mind about some­thing.