CORBIE 



After that time comes, there is very Httle quiet within 

 the home of a crow; and all the world about may guess, 

 without being a bit clever, where the nest is. A good 

 thing it is for the noisy youngsters that by that time 

 they are so large that it does not matter quite so much. 



But it was before the ^'kah-and-gubble" habit had 

 much more than begun that Corbie was adopted; and 

 the nestlings were really as still as could be when the 

 father of the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl 

 climbed way, way, way up that big tree and looked into 

 the round little room up there. There was no furniture 

 — none at all. Just one bare nursery, in which five 

 babies were staying day and night. Yet it was a tidy 

 room, fresh and sweet enough for anybody to live in; 

 for a crow, young or old, is a clean sort of person. 



The father of the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed 

 Girl looked over the five homely, floundering little birds, 

 and, choosing Corbie, put him into his hat and climbed 

 down with him. He was a nimble sort of father, or he 

 never could have done it, so tall a tree it was, with no 

 branches near the ground. 



Corbie, even at ten days old, was not like the spry 

 children of Peter Piper, w^ho could run about at one day 

 old, all ready for picnics and teetering along the shore. 

 No, indeed! He was almost as helpless and quite as 

 floppy as a human baby, and he needed as good care, 



105 



