The Tale of Old Mr. Crow

XXII

THE TEST

Well, it was no won­der that Mr. Crow was sur­prised when he found that some peo­ple want­ed to put him out of the meet­ing just be­cause he had said one word. Had he not al­ways talked more than any­body else at those sun­set meet­ings in the pine woods?

Luck­ily, no one made a move to oust him. And he man­aged to keep silent for a lit­tle while. But he was so an­gry that he did not hear what the stranger was say­ing. At last, how­ev­er, Mr. Crow be­gan to pay at­ten­tion again.

“Do you want to know why times are hard and food is scarce in this neigh­bor­hood?” the im­pu­dent fel­low asked.

Ev­ery­body ex­cept old Mr. Crow an­swered, “Yes!” And af­ter the echo had died away the stranger con­tin­ued:

“It's be­cause you need a new lead­er,” he de­clared. “I un­der­stand that a per­son called 'Old Mr. Crow' has been your lead­er for a good many years. And my ad­vice to you, friends, is this: _Get rid of him_!”

A good deal of ap­plause greet­ed his words. But some of the old­er and wis­er of his lis­ten­ers shook their heads.

“Who is there that could take Mr. Crow's place?” a voice called.

At that ques­tion the stranger coughed slight­ly and said:

“Of course, I wouldn't sug­gest any one spe­cial­ly, be­ing a new­com­er here my­self. And if the po­si­tion were of­fered to me, I don't know that I could ac­cept it, though I _have_ had so much ex­pe­ri­ence.”

The young fel­lows on the limb with Mr. Crow at once set up a great caw­ing.

“We want you!” they chant­ed. Old Mr. Crow might have been a scare­crow, for all the at­ten­tion they paid to him. And he did not dare open his mouth. Many oth­ers took up the cry. And a great hub-​bub arose--a beat­ing of wings, and fly­ing up and down, and jostling. Some of the younger ones squawked like chick­ens; oth­ers pre­tend­ed to cry like chil­dren. But most of the com­pa­ny cawed in their loud­est tones, un­til the whole val­ley rang with the up­roar.

Then one of old Mr. Crow's best friends spoke up and said:

“It's plain that a good many peo­ple want _you_ for a lead­er, stranger.”

“Then I'd be very hap­py to act as such,” the bold fel­low replied. “And I'll be­gin at once.”

But the el­der­ly per­son who had just spo­ken said that there was no hur­ry and that the stranger ought first to be put to a test.

“We want to make sure that you're a good lead­er,” he ex­plained. “And I would sug­gest that you go to see Farmer Green to-​mor­row, tell him that we ob­ject to his putting tar on his corn, and ask him not to do it again next spring.”

The stranger looked some­what un­easy, as he lis­tened. But af­ter he had pon­dered for a few mo­ments he said briskly:

“I'll do that! I'll go to Farmer Green to-​mor­row (he won't be busy, for to-​mor­row's Sun­day), and I'll make him agree to what you want.”

“We'll meet again on Mon­day, at sun­set,” Mr. Crow's friend an­nounced.

And then the meet­ing broke up in the wildest dis­or­der.

As for old Mr. Crow, he crept away with­out speak­ing to any­one. And al­ways, be­fore, he had made more noise than any ten of the oth­ers.