THe Missing Cooth 
the unusually hard weather of the winter of 1904. 
Three of them from the woodlot came begging of 
me, and lived on my wisdom, not on their own. 
Consider the ravens, that neither sow nor reap, 
that have neither storehouse nor barn, yet they are 
fed, — but not always. Indeed, there are few of our 
winter birds that go hungry so often, and that die in 
so great numbers for lack of food and shelter, as the 
crows. 
After severe and protracted cold, with a snow- 
covered ground, a crow-roost looks like a battlefield, 
so thick lie the dead and wounded. Morning after 
morning the flock goes over to forage in the frozen 
fields, and night after night returns hungrier, weaker, 
and less able to resist the cold. Now, as the dark- 
ness falls, a bitter wind breaks loose and sweeps 
down upon the pines. 
List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle, 
I thought me on the owrie cattle, 
and how often I have thought me on the crows biding 
the night yonder in the moaning pines! So often, as 
a boy, and with so real an awe, have I watched them 
returning at night, that the crows will never cease 
flying through my wintry sky, —an endless line of 
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