some think dull, but I think droll, his fondness for his own kind and 

 apparent ability to get along with his wife's folks, his choppy, short 

 flights, like an inexpert rower rowing hard over tumbling waters, his 

 higher flights, sometimes graceful as the soaring hawk, and all but as 

 swift, his sure home comLig at the night, sometimes with wild 

 speed and sometimes slowly as if in his long journey of the day he had 

 grown wing-weary, his steadfast love for home ; for wherever he may 

 have been by daylight, home he comes by twilight; and if you have ever 

 heard him calling across the evening sky glorious with sunset, and wing- 

 ing his way as if he might cross a continent, and then all of a sudden 

 he gyrates like a cyclone funnel for he has gotten home, if you have 

 seen this, your heart must have been touched as well as your eye grati- 

 fied, for if everybody knew enough to come home at night wherever they 

 may have been by day, the world would have more laughter, and sweeter 

 mirth, and more heaven before heaven were journeyed to. No, I like 

 the crow and his independence of me and my liking (for he ignores me 

 as he struts along my field as if he paid taxes instead of myself). When 

 I speak to him, he deigns no reply, but walks on with his proprietary 

 air; he does not know me and apparently does not want to. Who has 

 set his black mind against me, I can not tell, but certain it is he will 

 not be friends with me (some people think he is wise in that, but my 

 judgment is he makes a mistake). I do not like to be ignored, even by 

 a crow; however, I like him so well he is welcome to his impertinent 

 mien. He survives, no thanks to others. Nobody seems to love him ; 

 but he is indifferent. He does not sulk nor hide, he never runs to 

 shelter like the rabbits, nor hides in the hedge rows like the quail, but 

 affects the open, flies low over your head, talks to himself sometimes 

 while he swaggers across the sky, lights among your corn shocks, grows 

 pnggish before your very eyes, snubs you, neither laughs nor giggles, but 

 is always solemn as a hired mourner, propitiates nobody except himself. 

 He is brave as a soldier and sometimes as truculent ; but winter, spring, 

 summer, autumn, here he is, sometimes by himself walking along like a 

 preacher concocting his sermon, sometimes with a few intimate friends 

 like a bevy of girls after a party, and like the girls all talking at once, 

 sometimes, especially in autumn or winter, in great conventions noisy 

 as stump orators and as indefinite in destination, here he stays, and 

 here he lives despite his foes; and to be brief, I like him, and I fee* 

 proud with what I hope is Scriptural pride, that so stately a gentleman 

 condescends to help me farm. I like that part immensely. 



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