y of making
sure that the hunter who had first baited those Ducks with yellow corn
scattered in the rushes in front of his hiding place should have no
chance to kill any of them. While appearing to be an enemy, he really
had been a friend of Dusky the Black Duck and his flock.

CHAPTER XXIX: Blacky Discovers An Egg

Blacky is fond of eggs, as you know. In this he is a great deal like
other people, Farmer Brown's boy for instance. But as Blacky cannot keep
hens, as Farmer Brown's boy does, he is obliged to steal eggs or else
go without. If you come right down to plain, everyday truth, I suppose
Blacky isn't so far wrong when he insists that he is no more of a thief
than Farmer Brown's boy. Blacky says that the eggs which the bens lay
belong to the hens, and that he, Blacky has just as much right to take
them as Farmer Brown's boy. He quite overlooks the fact that Farmer
Brown's boy feeds the biddies and takes the eggs as pay. Anyway, that
is what Farmer Brown's boy says, but I do not know whether or not the
biddies understand it that way.

So Blacky the Crow cannot see why he should not help himself to an egg
when he gets the chance. He doesn't get the chance very often to steal
eggs from the hens, because usually they lay their eggs in the henhouse,
and Blacky is too suspicious to venture inside. The eggs he does get are
mostly those of his neighbors in the Green Forest and the Old Orchard.
But once in a great while some foolish hen will make a nest outside the
henhouse somewhere, and if Blacky happens to find it the black scamp
watches every minute he can spare from other mischief for a chance to
steal an egg.

Now Blacky knows just what a rogue Farmer Brown's boy thinks he is, and
for this reason Blacky is very careful about approaching Farmer Brown or
any other man until he has made sure that he runs no risk of being shot.
Blacky knows quite as well as any one what a gun looks like. He also
knows that without a terrible gun, there is little Farmer Brown or any
one else can do to him. So when he sees Farmer Brown out in his fields,
Blacky often will fly right over him and shout "Caw, caw, caw, ca-a-w!"
in the most provoking way, and Fanner Brown's boy insists that he has
seen Blacky wink when he was doing it.

But Blacky doesn't do anything of this kind around the buildings of
Farmer Brown. You see, he has learned that there are doors and windows
in buildings, and out of one of these a terrible gun may bang a