158 Bird -Lore 



his fancy. Sometimes he would bury his finds, at other times drop them down 

 a crack, chink or knot-hole in the floor — anywhere, in fact, where he could 

 frequently go and peep at them, always doing so with the greatest air of se- 

 crecy. 1 remember the first collection we came across. We were playing 

 one day near a pile of wood, when Nettle, who was basking in the sun and 

 playing idly with the Crow, suddenly jumped up and began sniffing near 

 where two projecting logs next the side of the outhouse made a dark little 

 corner. As soon as King Cole noticed this he flew into the greatest state of 

 excitement; he flounced on the dog's back, scolding and screaming, and tried 

 to drive her away. Finding violence of no avail, he tried coaxing. Sprawling 

 on the ground before her, he stuck one leg awkwardly out, in a manner 

 which usually proved irresistible to Nettle, to tempt her to a frolic. However, 

 even this failed to draw her off the scent, and she went on sniffing until she 

 ran her head quite under the ends of the logs. King Cole now evidently 

 gave up all for lost, for, with the light of a desperate resolve gleaming in his 

 eye, he bundled himself, with screams of rage, between the dog's feet, into 

 where her shoulders could not pass. Scratching and burrowing with his 

 beak, he unearthed presently a collection of crusts of bread, bones, bits of 

 glass bottles, scraps of scarlet cloth, buttons, a broken knife -blade, and any 

 number of pieces of buckwheat cakes. Determined that Nettle should not 

 profit by her find, he fell upon the scraps of food and gobbled them up so fast 

 that he very nearly choked himself to death. When Nettle was gotten away, 

 there stood King Cole with a bit of griddle-cake crosswise in his beak, 

 gasping for breath, — the very personification of selfish greed. Before night 

 he had carried off all his treasures and hidden them afresh. 



One day Meg was sitting at the open window sewing some buttons on 

 her boots. She put her thimble down for a moment, and King Cole, 

 who had been sitting on the low branch of a tree near by and crooning 

 in an absent-minded sort of way to himself, suddenly dropped from his perch 

 and pounced upon the thimble. He then flew to the ground with it, 

 where he stood jabbering away, and looking saucily at Meg, first with 

 one eye and then with the other. Out of consideration for my sister's 

 stockinged feet, I ran to get the thimble. Just as I put my hand out 

 for it, ofi he flew with it again — this time to the garden palings, where 

 he laid it carelessly on the top of a post, and turned to gaze abstractedly 

 across the field as if he had dismissed all thoughts of the thimble from 

 his wicked little mind. He even sidled some distance away from the 

 post, so that I was quite deceived into thinking he meant to give it up. 

 Not a bit of it ! The moment my hand went out for it, like a flash of 

 lightning he snatched it up and was off with it again. This was too 

 much for my sister at the window. "Oh, you stupid!" she cried, an 

 sallied forth, bootless, but full of confidence in her own powers. I can 

 laugh, to this day, when I think of that chase ! Before it ended, poor 



