JIM CROW 143 



some of the ones you killed last week over at Farmer 

 Johnson's. You killed more than you could eat and 

 I found them the next day, so I cleaned up the re- 

 mains. Folks don't give me credit for a lot of things 

 that I do, but if it wasn't for Old Man Buzzard and 

 me to take care of the dead animals and birds that 

 the people neglect to bum or bury, the country would 

 be unfit to live in. We are busy all the time now, 

 since the automobiles are so numerous. You see 

 Peter Rabbit and his relatives like to play in the 

 roads at night, and the bright lights of the ma- 

 chines blind them; consequently every morning 

 along some of these roads we find a dead rabbit to 

 take care of, and if it wasn't for the crow family, it 

 wouldn't be done. 



"Now we don't eat many eggs. Just once in a 

 while we like a change, just the same as you do, 

 but we do eat a lot of corn during the year. Thirty- 

 eight per cent of our yearly food is com and we 

 don't care who knows it. For the good we do in 

 killing bugs and worms the farmer can afford to give 

 us our corn. Why, bless me, Reddy, I eat every year 

 enough grasshoppers and May beetles to destroy an 

 entire crop. I have eaten many days over one hun- 

 dred and fifty grasshoppers and in April I have eaten 

 a hundred May beetles in a day. You may not 



