456 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



enemies and will allow no liberties from a stranger. 

 Of course, a crow's honesty is no better than a 

 pack-rat, but my crow nevtr stole from me, and 

 somehow or other one finds it easy to forgive a 

 thief who only steals from others. 



When we dug up our flower-bed in the early 

 spring there were no /ess than seven silver thimbles 

 unearthed, and not one of the lot came from our 

 house. One day U l3illy" brought me a nice two- 

 dollar greenback. In those days a two-dollar bill 

 was a very, very large amount to me, and stood 

 for an unheard of amount of butter-scotch and 

 ginger bread. 



Of course the money did not belong to me, but 

 neither did it belong to the crow, and "Billy" 

 would not tell where he got his wealth, so after a 

 consultation with my parents and my teachers, and 

 after waiting to see if any one claimed the bill, it 

 was at length decided to be my property, and it 

 was the first two dollars I ever had all in a heap. 



But it was not always money the crow found; 

 once he filled all the crevices in my mother's great 

 four-posted bed with liver; this could not be seen 

 and attracted no attention until the summer heat 

 began to act upon it, then everybody in the house 

 knew that something had happened. The old folks 

 said a rat must have died in the partition, but the 

 crow and I said nothing, we were chums and under- 

 stood each other. So I busied myself with the 

 model of a log house upon which I was at work 

 and the crow was equally busy decorating the dog 



