The Tale of Old Mr. Crow

III

THE GI­ANT SCARE­CROW

Farmer Green al­ways claimed that Mr. Crow was a ruf­fi­an and a rob­ber.

“That old chap has been com­ing here ev­ery sum­mer for years,” he said to his son John­nie one day. “I al­ways know him when I see him, be­cause he's the biggest of all the crows that steal my corn.”

That was Farmer Green's way of look­ing at a cer­tain mat­ter. But old Mr. Crow re­gard­ed it oth­er­wise. He knew well enough what Farmer Green thought of his trick of dig­ging up the new­ly plant­ed corn. And his own idea and Farmer Green's did not agree at all.

Now, this mat­ter was some­thing that old Mr. Crow nev­er men­tioned un­less some­body else spoke of it first. And then Mr. Crow would shake his head slow­ly, and sigh, and say:

“It's strange that Farmer Green doesn't un­der­stand how much I help him. I'm as busy as I can be all sum­mer long, de­stroy­ing in­sects that in­jure his crops. And since I help Farmer Green to raise his corn, I'm sure I have as good a right to a share of it as the hors­es that plough the field, or the men that hoe it. Farmer Green gives them corn to eat. But he nev­er once thinks of giv­ing me any.”

You see, there are al­ways two sides to ev­ery ques­tion. And that was Mr. Crow's. But Farmer Green nev­er knew how Mr. Crow felt about the mat­ter. And ev­ery spring, at corn-​plant­ing time, he used to set up scare­crows in his corn­field, hop­ing that they would fright­en the crows away.

And so they did. At least, some of the younger crows were afraid of those straw-​stuffed dum­mies, with their hats tipped over their faces, or up­on one side, and their emp­ty sleeves flap­ping in the winds that swept through the val­ley. But old Mr. Crow was too wise to be fooled so eas­ily. He would scratch up the corn at the very feet of a scare­crow--and chuck­le at the same time.

It must not be sup­posed that Farmer Green did not know what was go­ing on. He of­ten caught sight of Mr. Crow in the corn­field. But it al­ways hap­pened that Mr. Crow saw him too. And Farmer Green could nev­er get near the old rogue.

At last John­nie Green's fa­ther spent a whole evening try­ing to think of some way in which to out­wit Mr. Crow. And by bed­time he had hit up­on a plan that he liked.

The next day, with John­nie to help him, he set to work to build a mon­ster scare­crow. It was twice as high as the tallest man that was ev­er seen. And for a hat Farmer Green set on its straw head a huge tin pan, which glit­tered when the sun shone up­on it.

“That'll fix him!” said Farmer Green, as he stood off and looked at the gi­ant. And as for his son John­nie, he danced up and down and shout­ed--he was so pleased.

But Mr. Crow was not pleased when he flew to­ward the corn­field the next day and saw the great fig­ure of a man there, with a ter­ri­ble glit­ter­ing hel­met up­on his head. And Mr. Crow no­ticed some­thing up­on the gi­ant's shoul­der that looked very like a gun.

The old gen­tle­man swerved quick­ly to one side and nev­er stopped his flight un­til he had reached the woods.

And that night Farmer Green felt quite mer­ry.

“I've scared that old crow away at last,” he said.