crawled, or flew. He could imitate any and everybody, and he did. He
could sing like Mr. Meadow Lark, or he could bark like Mr. Wolf. He
could whistle like Mr. Quail, or he could growl like old King Bear.
There wasn't anybody whose voice he couldn't imitate and do it so well
that if you had been there and heard but not seen him, you never would
have guessed that it was an imitation.

"Now the imp of mischief was in old Mr. Crow, just as it is in Blacky
to-day, and he was smart too. There wasn't anybody smarter than old Mr.
Crow. It's from him that Blacky gets his smartness. It didn't take him
long to discover that no one else had such a wonderful tongue. It was
even more wonderful than the tongue of old Mr. Mocker the Mocking Bird.
Mr. Mocker could imitate the songs of other birds, but old Mr. Crow
could imitate anybody, as I have said. He puzzled over it a good deal
himself for a while. He couldn't understand how he could make any sound
he pleased, while his neighbors could make only a few special sounds.

"Being very smart and shrewd, just as Blacky is, he finally made up his
mind that it must be in his tongue. As soon as he thought of that, he
started out to find out, and on one excuse or another he managed to get
all his neighbors to show him their tongues. Sure enough, his own tongue
was different from any of the others. It was split a little, so that it
was almost like two tongues in one.

"'That's it,' he chuckled. 'I knew it. It's this little old tongue of
mine. Nobody else has got one like it, but nobody knows that but me. I
must make good use of it. Yes, Sir, I must make good use of it.'

"Now when old Mr. Crow said that, he didn't really mean good use at all.
That is, he didn't mean what you or I or any of his neighbors would have
called good use. What he did mean was the use that would bring to
himself the greatest gain in pleasure, and being a great joker, he began
by having a lot of fun with his neighbors. When he saw Mr. Rabbit, your
grandfather a thousand times removed, coming along, he would hide, and
just as Mr. Rabbit was passing, he would snarl like Mr. Lynx. Of course
Mr. Rabbit would be scared almost to death, and away he would go,
lipperty-lipperty-lip, and old Mr. Crow would laugh so that he had to
hold his black sides. He would hide in the top of a tree near Mr.
Squirrel's home, and just when Mr. Squirrel had found a fat nut and
started to eat it, he would scream like Mr. Hawk and then laugh t