The Tale of Old Mr. Crow

VII

MR. CROW'S BAD MEM­ORY

It was true, as Mr. Crow had said, that he had a bad mem­ory. By the time he reached home he had for­got­ten al­most ev­ery­thing the fa­mous doc­tor, Aunt Pol­ly Wood­chuck, had said to him. About all Mr. Crow could re­call of their talk was that Aunt Pol­ly had told him his swollen foot was caused by gout; and that she had giv­en him sam­ples of such food as he might eat, and al­so such as he mightn't.

He had put the two kinds in dif­fer­ent pock­ets, just as Aunt Pol­ly had sug­gest­ed. And all he had to do when he was hun­gry was to look in­to his pock­ets and see what food he might safe­ly choose for his meal. Well, Mr. Crow was hun­gry as a bear by the time he reached his house. And the first thing he did was to feel in his left-​hand pock­et. He drew forth a ker­nel of corn.

“Good!” he cried. “That's ex­act­ly what I'd like for my din­ner. And if Farmer Green hadn't tarred his corn be­fore plant­ing it I know ex­act­ly where I'd go.” Then he thought deeply for a few min­utes. “I'll go over to the corn-​crib and see if I can't find some corn on the ground!” he ex­claimed a lit­tle lat­er. While he was think­ing he ate the sam­ple of corn, with­out once notic­ing what he did.

So Mr. Crow flew swift­ly to the farm-​yard. It hap­pened that there was no­body about. And, luck­ily, Mr. Crow found enough corn scat­tered near the door of the corn-​crib to fur­nish him with a good din­ner.

The next morn­ing, as soon as it be­gan to grow light (for Mr. Crow was an ear­ly ris­er), he felt in his left-​hand pock­et once more. And he pulled out an el­der­ber­ry.

“That won't do!” he said. “It's too ear­ly in the sea­son for el­der­ber­ries.” But he ate the sam­ple--though he found it rather dry, for it was a last year's berry. And then he fished a bird's egg out of the same pock­et. “My fa­vorite break­fast!” he re­marked. He ate the egg. And at once he start­ed out to hunt for more. Some peo­ple say that he robbed the nests of sev­er­al small birds be­fore he had break­fast enough.

Mr. Crow then pro­ceed­ed to pass the morn­ing very pleas­ant­ly, by mak­ing calls on his friends. He en­joyed their sur­prise at see­ing his ban­daged foot.

“I've the worst case of gout Aunt Pol­ly Wood­chuck has ev­er seen,” he told ev­ery one with an air of pride.

When lunch time came, it found Mr. Crow with a hearty ap­petite. And once more he felt in his left-​hand pock­et to see what he might have for his meal.

He pulled out a squirm­ing field-​mouse. Mr. Crow was about to eat him; but the mouse slipped away and hid in a hol­low stump. So Mr. Crow lost him. Then he went soar­ing off across the pas­ture. And when he came home again he didn't seem hun­gry at all. What­ev­er he may have found to eat, it seemed to sat­is­fy him.

By this time Mr. Crow had quite re­cov­ered from the fear that had seized him when he first dis­cov­ered his swollen foot. And be­fore he went to sleep that night he thought he would take the ban­dage off his foot and look at it. He had some trou­ble in re­mov­ing the ban­dage. And when he had suc­ceed­ed in un­wind­ing it he could hard­ly be­lieve his eyes. His foot was its nat­ural size again!

Old Mr. Crow looked at the ban­dage. And he saw, cling­ing to it, a mass of caked mud. He could not un­der­stand that.

“Any­how, I'm cured,” he said sad­ly. He was dis­ap­point­ed, be­cause there were still a good many of his friends to whom he had not yet shown his ban­daged foot. “I don't con­sid­er that Aunt Pol­ly Wood­chuck is as good a doc­tor as peo­ple say,” Mr. Crow grum­bled. “Here she's gone and cured my foot al­most a week be­fore I want­ed her to!”

And the next day he went over to see the old la­dy and com­plain about her mis­take.

“What have you been eat­ing?” she asked Mr. Crow.

He told her.

“Ah!” said Aunt Pol­ly. “It's your mis­take--and not mine. You ate what was in your _left-​hand pock­et_, in­stead of what was in the right-​hand one. If you had fol­lowed my in­struc­tions ev­ery­thing would have been all right.”

Old Mr. Crow felt very much ashamed. There was noth­ing he could say. So he slunk away and moped for three days.

Though he did not know it, the trou­ble with his foot was sim­ply this: He had daubed so much tar on his foot, in Farmer Green's corn­field, that the soft earth had stuck to it in a big ball.

Mr. Crow re­cov­ered his spir­its at last. And nei­ther he nor Aunt Pol­ly Wood­chuck ev­er dis­cov­ered that he nev­er had gout at all. He for­gave her, at last, for hav­ing cured his foot too quick­ly, for the af­fair gave him some­thing to talk about for a long time af­ter­ward. He nev­er tired of telling his friends about the trou­ble he had had.

But many of the feath­ered folk in Pleas­ant Val­ley grew very weary of the tale be­fore they heard the last of it.