THE RED COW 



friends of the farmer, even though they may have 

 faults. So when it came time to plant the corn 

 we gave the seed grain a good coating of tar, and 

 then rolled it in ashes to dry it. This used to be a 

 common practice many years ago, though I haven't 

 seen any one doing it of late years. It certainly 

 made the corn about as unappetising as anything 

 possibly could, so I was not surprised, when I went 

 to the corn field a few mornings after the planting, 

 to find a blackbird sitting on the fence, coughing 

 and spitting and using unparliamentary language. 

 But I will take part of that back. Some of the 

 language used by parliamentarians during the past 

 few months has been of a kind that makes me wonder 

 if any kind of language can possibly be unparlia- 

 mentary. But to get back to the blackbird. He 

 evidently thought I had played it low down on him 

 after the way he had helped me in the matter of 

 grubs, and I had no way of telling him that like a 

 lot of human beings who do disagreeable things to 

 one another I had done it "for his own good." A 

 little tar and ashes in his beak was a greater kind- 

 ness to him than a charge of bird shot. 



* * * * 



Now, I dare say there will be some scientific per- 



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