ol-shed, he danced. If he found a gay ribbon to drag
about the yard, he danced. But most and best he danced on a hot day when
he was given a bright basin of water. Singing a lively chattering tune,
he came to his bath. He cocked one bright eye and then the other over
the ripples his beak made in the water. Plunging in, he splashed long,
cooling flutters. Then he danced back and forth from the doorstep to
his glistening pan, chattering his funny tune the while.

Have you heard of a Highland Fling or a Sailor's Hornpipe? Well,
Corbie's Happy Dance was as gay as both together, when he jigged in the
dooryard to the tune of his own merry chatter. The Brown-eyed Boy and
the Blue-eyed Girl laughed to see him, and the Grown-Ups laughed. And
even as they laughed, their hearts danced with the little black crow--he
made them feel so very glad about the bath. For he had been too warm and
was now comfortable. The summer sun on his feathered body had tired him,
and the cooling water brought relief. "Thanks be for the bath. O bird,
be joyful for the bath!" he chattered in his own language, as he spread
his wings and gave again and yet again his Happy Dance.

But a basin, however bright, is not enough to keep a crow in the
dooryard; for a crow is a bird of adventure.

So it was that on a certain day Corbie flew over the cornfield and over
the tree-tops to the river; and so quiet were his wings, that the
Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl did not hear his coming, and they
both jumped when he perched upon a tiny rock near by and screamed,
"Caw," quite suddenly, as one child says, "Boo," to another, to surprise
him. Then the bird sang his chatter tune, and found a shallow place near
the bank, where he splashed and bathed. After that, the Blue-eyed Girl
showed him a little water-snail. He turned it over in his beak and
dropped it. It meant no more to him than a pebble. "I think you'll like
to eat it, Corbie," said the Brown-eyed Boy, breaking the shell and
giving it to him again; "even people eat snails, I've heard."

Corbie took the morsel and swallowed it, and soon was cracking for
himself all the snails his comrades gave him. But that was not enough,
for their eyes were only the eyes of children and his bright bird eyes
could find them twice as fast. So he waded in the river, playing "I spy"
with his foster brother and sister, and beating them, too, at the game,
though they had hunted snails as many summers as he had minutes.

He