Green Meadow Stories - Thornton W. Burgess (best novels for students txt) 📗

enough to see that Bowser is lost and badly lost. My goodness, how lame he is! I wonder what’s happened to him. Serves him right for hunting other people, but I’m sorry for him just the same. What a helpless creature a lost dog is, anyway. I suppose if he doesn’t find a house pretty soon he will starve to death. Old Man Coyote wouldn’t. Reddy Fox wouldn’t. They would catch something to eat, no matter where they were. I suppose they wouldn’t thank me for doing it, but just the same I think I’ll take pity on Bowser and help him out of his trouble.” VIII How Blacky the Crow Helped Bowser

The blackest coat may cover the kindest heart.

Bowser the Hound

When Blacky the Crow said to himself that he guessed he would take pity on Bowser and help him out of his trouble, he knew that he could do it without very much trouble to himself. Perhaps if there had been very much trouble in it, Blacky would not have been quite so ready and willing. Then again, perhaps it isn’t fair to Blacky to think that he might not have been willing. Even the most selfish people are sometimes kindly and unselfish.

Blacky knew just where the nearest house was. You can always trust Blacky to know not only where every house is within sight of the places he frequents, but all about the people who live in each house. Blacky makes it his business to know these things. He could, if he would, tell you which houses have terrible guns in them and which have not. It is by knowing such things that Blacky manages to avoid danger.

“If that dog knows enough to follow me, I’ll take him where he can at least get something to eat,” muttered Blacky. “It won’t be far out of my way, anyway, because if he has any sense at all, I won’t have to go all the way over there.”

So Blacky spread his black wings and disappeared over the treetops in the direction of the nearest farmhouse.

Bowser watched him disappear and whined sadly, for somehow it made him feel more lonesome than before. But for one thing he would have gone back to his bed of hay in the corner of that sugar camp. That one thing was hunger. It seemed to Bowser that his stomach was so empty that the very sides of it had fallen in. He just must get something to eat.

So, after waiting a moment or two, Bowser turned and limped away through the trees, and he limped in the direction which Blacky the Crow had taken. You see, he could still hear Blacky’s voice calling “Caw, caw, caw,” and somehow it made him feel better, less lonesome, you know, to be within hearing of a voice he knew.

Bowser had to go on three legs, for one leg had been so hurt in the fall over the bank that he could not put his foot to the ground. Then, too, he was very, very stiff from the cold and the wetting he had received the night before. So poor Bowser made slow work of it, and Blacky the Crow almost lost patience waiting for him to appear.

As soon as Bowser came in sight, Blacky gave what was intended for a cheery caw and then headed straight for the place he had started for that morning, giving no more thought to Bowser the Hound. You see, he knew that Bowser would shortly come to a road. “If he doesn’t know enough to follow that road, he deserves to starve,” thought Blacky.

Bowser did know enough to follow that road. The instant he saw that road, he knew that if he kept on following it, it would lead him somewhere. So with new hope in his heart, Bowser limped along.

IX Old Man Coyote Gives Out Dark Hints

A little hint dropped there or here,
Is like a seed in spring of year;
It sprouts and grows, and none may say
How big ’twill be some future day.

Bowser the Hound

After leading Bowser the Hound far, far away and getting him lost in strange country, Old Man Coyote trotted back to the Old Pasture, the Green Forest, and the Green Meadows near Farmer Brown’s. He didn’t have any trouble at all in finding his way back. You see, all the time he was leading Bowser away, he himself was using his eyes and taking note of where he was going. You can’t lose Old Man Coyote. No, sir, you can’t lose Old Man Coyote, and it is of no use to try.

So, stopping two or three times to hunt a little by the way, Old Man Coyote trotted back. He managed to pick up a good meal on the way, and when at last he reached his home in the Old Pasture he was feeling very well satisfied with the Great World in general and himself in particular.

He grinned as only Old Man Coyote can grin. “I don’t think any of us will be bothered by that meddlesome Bowser very soon again,” said he, as he crept into his house for a nap. “If he had drowned in that river, I shouldn’t have cried over it. But even as it is, I don’t think he will get back here in a hurry. I must pass the word along.”

So a day or so later, when Sammy Jay happened along, Old Man Coyote asked him, in quite a matter-of-fact way, if he had seen anything of Bowser the Hound for a day or two.

“Why do you ask?” said Sammy sharply.

Old Man Coyote grinned slyly. “For no reason at all, Sammy. For no reason at all,” he replied. “It just popped into my head that I hadn’t heard Bowser’s voice for two or three days. It set me to wondering if he is sick, or if anything has happened to him.”

That was enough to start Sammy Jay straight for Farmer