The Tale of Old Mr. Crow

VIII

THE NEW UM­BREL­LA

Old Mr. Crow was feel­ing very hap­py, be­cause he had a new um­brel­la--the on­ly um­brel­la that was owned for miles around. And wher­ev­er Mr. Crow went, the um­brel­la went too, tucked snug­ly un­der his wing.

There was on­ly one thing that could have made Mr. Crow feel any hap­pi­er; and that was rain. As soon as it rained he in­tend­ed to spread the um­brel­la over his head and go to call up­on all of his friends.

But not a drop of rain had fall­en for weeks. And so far as old Mr. Crow could judge, there wasn't a sin­gle sign of a storm any­where. Nev­er­the­less, he con­tin­ued to car­ry his um­brel­la ev­ery time he stirred away from his house. And al­though the weath­er was so dry, he found a good deal of plea­sure in show­ing his um­brel­la to his neigh­bors.

Now, old Mr. Crow had a cousin of whom you have heard. His name was Jasper Jay; and he was a great dandy. He al­ways took pride in his hand­some blue suit, of which he was very vain.

Be­ing an in­quis­itive fel­low, Jasper Jay was much in­ter­est­ed in Mr. Crow's um­brel­la. When­ev­er he met Mr. Crow he asked the old gen­tle­man to spread the um­brel­la; and once Mr. Crow had let Jasper hold it for as long as ten sec­onds, “just to see how it felt.”

Af­ter that Jasper Jay could not get the um­brel­la out of his mind. He be­gan call­ing at Mr. Crow's house ev­ery day; and all the time he was there he nev­er took his eyes off the um­brel­la.

At last the two cousins met in the woods one day. As usu­al, Mr. Crow had his um­brel­la tucked un­der his wing. But when Jasper asked him to spread it, Mr. Crow re­fused.

“I can't keep putting my um­brel­la up and down,” he said. “If I did, the first thing I knew it would be worn out; and then what would hap­pen to me if it should rain?”

“You'd get wet,” said Jasper Jay.

“Ex­act­ly!” Mr. Crow replied. “And at my age I might take cold and be very ill, per­haps.”

“Where are you go­ing?” Jasper in­quired pleas­ant­ly. He was dis­ap­point­ed; but he did not let his cousin see that.

“I'm on my way to a big meet­ing of the Crow fam­ily,” the old gen­tle­man replied.

“And you're tak­ing your um­brel­la?” Jasper asked, as if he were great­ly as­ton­ished.

“Why--yes!” Mr. Crow an­swered. “You seem sur­prised.”

“I am,” said Jasper Jay with a sad shake of his head. “I'd hate to risk it, if I were you. There'll be some rough young fel­lows there and you're like­ly to lose your um­brel­la. I'm afraid they'll take it away from you.”

Old Mr. Crow looked wor­ried.

“I don't know what to do,” he said anx­ious­ly. “It's an im­por­tant meet­ing. They're ex­pect­ing me. And I'm late, as it is. If I go back home and leave my um­brel­la I'm afraid they'll think I'm not com­ing.”

“I sup­pose I could help you just this once,” Jasper Jay re­marked. “Of course, it's not a thing I'd do for ev­ery­body. But since you're my cousin, if you want me to do it I'll take care of your um­brel­la un­til you come back again.”

“Will you wait right here?” Mr. Crow asked him.

“Yes!”

“Will you promise not to spread the um­brel­la?”

At that ques­tion Jasper Jay's face fell. But pret­ty soon he said cheer­ful­ly:

“I promise not to put it up--un­less it should rain.”

Mr. Crow looked care­ful­ly at the sky. There was not a cloud to be seen. So he turned to Jasper Jay with a smile and placed the um­brel­la care­ful­ly in his hands.

Then Mr. Crow flew away.

“It cer­tain­ly can't rain,” he said to him­self.

Mr. Crow ar­rived at the meet­ing quite out of breath. And his friends no­ticed that he seemed un­easy about some­thing. He kept look­ing up at the sky and ask­ing ev­ery­body what he thought about the weath­er.