lustration: LOOKED IN QUITE A WHILE, THINKING.]

The 'Possum went to bed and pulled up the covers and tried to sleep so
he would forget it. The 'Coon sat up in a rocking chair and rocked on
purpose to think about it, for he was a great hand to plan, and he
thought mebbe he could work it out some way. The Crow didn't do either,
but walked about his house, picking up first one thing and then another,
as people do sometimes when they don't do anything else. But the Crow
was luckier than most people who do that, for by and by he picked up
quite a big paper sack with something in it. Then he untied it and
looked into it quite a while, thinking. It was more than half full of
corn meal, and pretty soon he remembered that he had carried it off once
when he was passing Mr. Man's pantry window, not because he wanted it,
but because he was a crow, and crows carry off anything that isn't too
big, whether they want it or not. Then he hunted around some more and
found another sack with some flour in it that he had picked up once in
the same way. Then he found some little bags of pepper and salt and a
lump of butter.

"My!" said the Little Lady, "but he'd carried off a lot of things!"

Yes, crows always do, and hide them that way. Well, he didn't say
anything, but he slipped down stairs and gathered up some of the chicken
bones under the table and some pieces of bark and sticks, and brought
them up to his own part of the house and shut the door. Then he kindled
a little fire in the stove with the sticks and opened his outside door a
crack and got a skillet full of snow and put it on, and when the snow
melted he dropped in the chicken bones and let them stew, and then a
little of the flour and some pepper and salt and stirred it, and he had
some nice gravy.

By and by the 'Possum and 'Coon smelt it cooking and thought it came
from a farm house, and the 'Possum turned over twice and thought of
everything he had ever heard of to make people go to sleep, and the
'Coon rocked harder and harder.

Then Mr. Crow poured the gravy into a bowl and set it back on the stove
to keep warm while he stirred up some of the cornmeal in some more
melted snow, with a little pinch of salt and a little piece of the
butter. When it was all stirred good he put it into the skillet and
patted it down, and when it was baked nice and brown on both sides it
was as good a Johnnie cake as you ever tasted.

He laughed to himself a minute and then he slipped dow