King Cole: A Biography 159 



Meg's temper and her stockings were of about the same hue — decidedly 

 black. He led her over acres of land, through a plowed field of soft, 

 black soil, into which she plunged, regardless of her white stockings. 

 Then on through an oat stubble, where poor Meg fairly danced in agony ; 

 over any number of snake -fences with blackberry hedges on either side, 

 not to speak of the various stone piles he selected as his stopping places. 

 At each attempt to get the thimble from him, the little -rascal allowed 

 her to all but close her hand upon it. Never once did he snap it up 

 until the very last moment. 



After a while, she, learning something from the tactics of her enemy, 

 changed hers, and tried the plan of knocking him away from the thimble 

 with a long fence-rail; but he invariably got to it first, no matter how 

 quickly she dropped the rail, and made a dash for the thimble. Next 

 she tried the ruse of walking past him with studied unconcern, and 

 returning with a rush. She even went so far as to pretend to go to 

 sleep, her head a yard from the disputed property, and her hand ready 

 for the clutch — but for each and all of her manoeuvers he was fully 

 prepared, and it seemed to me, who watched proceedings from a distance, 

 that the victory was to be with the little black Crow, who did look such 

 a tiny creature beside my tall sister of twelve years of age. You will 

 never guess how it ended ! King Cole's manner of surrender was worthy 

 of him. After leading poor exasperated Meg nearly back to the house 

 again, he flew to the branch of a tree, the thimble held in the tip of 

 his beak, and sat there eyeing her as she stood below, impotently 

 threatening and hurling sticks and stones at him. Presently he tilted 

 deliberately forward and dropped the thimble at her feet, sat up very 

 straight, cocked his head on one side and muttered soothingly, saying as 

 plainly as Crow could: ''There, little girl, there's your thimble; I am 

 done with it." 



One of the Crow's favorite tricks, and his funniest, was to drop suddenly 

 into a flock of strange fowls, whenever he came across any in the fields or 

 barn-yards about (our own hens and he were the best of friends) and when, 

 in a fright, they would disperse, he would affect to start and look about him, 

 as much as to say " Dear me! how is it I find myself alone?" I have watched 

 him do this many times, and the little by-play was always the same, and 

 most amusing. 



The terror of his life were his wild kinsmen, who soon found him out 

 in his adopted home. They cordially hated him, and when they managed to 

 catch him far from home without a protector would attack him savagely. 

 More than once the men working in the fields saved him only just in time 

 from being picked to death. Sometimes as many as four or five wild Crows 

 would pursue him, clamoring loudly, almost to the house door, or to within 

 a few yards of us if we were in the fields. I think, when one considers the 



