The Tale of Old Mr. Crow

XVI

A TIGHT FIT

Now, a cer­tain thing hap­pened that made Mr. Crow change his mind about stay­ing North for the win­ter. It had some­thing to do with nuts, and Frisky Squir­rel, and Sandy Chip­munk. But that is an­oth­er sto­ry; and you may al­ready have heard it.

Any­how, Mr. Crow sud­den­ly de­cid­ed that he would have to fly south­ward, af­ter all. He was dis­ap­point­ed, be­cause he didn't like the thought of hav­ing to make so long a jour­ney. More­over, he had his new blue coat with the yel­low spots, which Mr. Frog had made for him. It was a hand­some coat. And ev­ery­body said it was very be­com­ing to Mr. Crow. But he knew it was al­to­geth­er too warm to wear to his home in the South where the weath­er was sure to be mild.

“I'll have to leave my new coat be­hind,” he said to him­self in a sad voice. “It's al­most too heavy to wear even here, though it is fall. I hate to do it; but I'd bet­ter take it off and hide it some­where. There might be some cold days next spring when I'd be glad of a thick, warm coat.”

So the old gen­tle­man start­ed to un­but­ton his new coat, which he had worn all day, ev­er since Mr. Frog had slipped it on him ear­ly in the morn­ing. Any­one might think that it would have been an easy mat­ter to un­but­ton the coat, for Mr. Frog had sewed a dou­ble row of big brown but­tons down the front of it. But for some time Mr. Crow fum­bled with one of them in vain.

“Ha!” he ex­claimed at last. “This is stupid of me! I'm try­ing to un­but­ton the wrong row of but­tons.” Then he fum­bled with one of the but­tons of the oth­er row. But strange to say, he was no more suc­cess­ful than be­fore. He strug­gled with all the but­tons in that row (there were five of them). And then he tried the oth­er five, one af­ter an­oth­er.

Mr. Crow couldn't un­der­stand it. He want­ed more than ev­er to take the coat off, be­cause his ef­forts to un­but­ton it had made him quite warm.

“I shall have get some­body to help me,” he said at last. “It may be that my eye­sight is fail­ing--though I haven't no­ticed be­fore that there was any­thing the mat­ter with it.... There's my cousin, Jasper Jay! I'll ask him to un­but­ton my coat.” And he called to Jasper, who had just alight­ed on a stump not far away.

To Mr. Crow's dis­may, his cousin re­fused to as­sist him.

“I know you too well,” said Jasper Jay. “You want to play some trick on me. If the but­tons were on the back of your coat I might help you. But they're right in front of you; and they're so big that a blind per­son couldn't help find­ing them, even on the dark­est night.... No! You can't fool me this time!”

“Very well!” Mr. Crow croaked. “If you won't help me, there are plen­ty of oth­er peo­ple who'll be glad to.” And he flew away in some­thing very like a tem­per.

To Mr. Crow's sur­prise he couldn't find any­one that would un­but­ton his new coat for him; like Jasper Jay, ev­ery­body was afraid that Mr. Crow meant to play a trick on him.

Mr. Crow was be­gin­ning to be fright­ened. He had called on all his friends in Pleas­ant Val­ley ex­cept one. And if that one should refuse, Mr. Crow didn't know what he could do. He had liked his spot­ted coat. But now he be­gan to hate it. And he want­ed to slip out of it and nev­er see it again.

So Mr. Crow hur­ried over to the swamp where Fat­ty Coon lived.