146 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
much the same pleasure in it that a cowboy takes 
in riding a bucking broncho. Still another trick 
was to wake up the family at five a.m. This he 
did by flying to the big man’s chamber window 
ledge (the window was always open) and cawing 
at the top of his lungs, till somebody tossed him 
out a scrap of food. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant 
trick, and Jim never knew how close he came 
sometimes to having his neck wrung! 
In the matter of food, he and his brother and 
sister were peculiarly fortunate. Not only did 
they get table scraps, bits of meat (which they 
dearly loved), and all the crumbs from Don’s 
dish, but the big man had a garden in which he 
hoed, and when they saw him enter this garden 
they flew with joyful noise, if not with song, after 
him, and followed his hoe or cultivator up the 
rows, pouncing greedily on every white grub his 
implement turned up. He used to call them his 
best helpers at such times, as indeed they were. 
They certainly ought to have become fat and 
healthy crows. Nevertheless, it is to be feared: 
that they were somewhat afflicted with what the 
soldiers so euphoniously call cooties. One day 
