. "Every word
Grandmother Magpie says is true. We are kept like prisoners in this old
nest. I'm going to fly!"

"Oh, don't!" cried all his brothers and sisters. "You can't fly even
across the Shady Forest Path."

"Well, then, I can walk," said the naughty little crow, and he hopped
out of the nest and fluttered down to the ground.

But, Oh dear me! Just then along came the Farmer's Boy. In a twinkling,
he caught poor Jimmy Crow and cut off the tips of his wing feathers with
a big jack-knife.

"Now, my little black beauty, you won't fly far," he laughed, and turned
his steps toward the Old Farm.

"So, you're caught, Jimmy Crow!"
Sang gay Billy Breeze,
Playing hide-and-go-seek
'Mid the tall forest trees.

"Don't you wish you'd obeyed
What your kind mother said?
But, no, you were stubborn,
And had a swelled head."

A PRISONER

PRETTY soon along came Little Jack Rabbit on his way home from school.
Everybody in the Shady Forest knew Little Jack Rabbit. From his nest in
the Tall Pine Tree Jimmy Crow had often seen him hopping by with the
Squirrel Brothers.

How he wished now he had never left the dear old nest. Here he was, a
prisoner, and there was the little rabbit, free and happy, hopping home
from school.

He tried to flutter out of the Farmer Boy's hand, but he was only held
the tighter, so he lay perfectly still and wondered miserably what his
mother would say when she came home and heard that he had disobeyed.

By and by the Farmer's Boy opened the gate to the Farmyard and walked
over to the Big Red Barn. Pretty soon he found an old birdcage, in which
he put poor Jimmy Crow. Then he hung it up on the little front porch of
the Old Farm House.

"What have you got there," asked the Kind Farmer when he came home for
supper, "a young crow?"

"Yep," answered the Farmer's Boy. "I picked him up in the woods; he was
tryin' to fly."

It was very lonely on the little front porch after Mr. Merry Sun had
gone to bed. Jimmy Crow huddled in one corner and watched Mrs. Moon
climb over the hilltop.

He heard Granddaddy Bullfrog singing in the Duck Pond, and the splash of
the millwheel as it turned slowly over and over. How he wished he had
obeyed his mother and was safe at home, listening to his father tell the
school news, and who was late, and who knew his lesson best.

By and by the Old Grandfather Clock in