hink, to see him with beak up and open, and with
fluttering wings held out from his sides, that the little chap begging
"Kah! kah! kah!" was old enough to do more than "gubble" the food that
was poked into his big throat. But for all that, when the Brown-eyed Boy
forgot the dish of earthworms and ran off to play, Corbie would listen
until he could hear no one near, and then cock his bright eye down over
the wriggling worms. Then, very slyly, he would pick one up with a jerk
and catch it back into his mouth. One by one he would eat the worms,
until he wanted no more; and then he would hide the rest by poking them
into cracks or covering them with chips, crooning the while over his
secret joke. "There-there-tuck-it-there," was what his croon sounded
like; but if the Brown-eyed Boy or the Blue-eyed Girl came near, he
would flutter out his wings at his sides and lift his open beak, his
teasing "Kah" seeming to say, "Honest, I haven't had a bite to eat since
you fed me last."

When his body was grown so big with his stuffing that he was almost a
full-sized crow, he stopped his constant begging for food. The days of
his greed were only the days of his growth needs, and the world was too
full of adventures to spend all his time just eating.

It was now time for him to take pleasure in his sense of sight,
and for a few, weeks he went nearly crazy with joy over yellow
playthings. He strewed the vegetable garden with torn and tattered
squash-blossoms--gorgeous bits of color that it was such fun to find
hidden under the big green leaves! He strutted to the flower-garden, and
pulled off all the yellow pansies, piling them in a heap. He jumped for
the golden buttercups, nipping them from their stems. He danced for joy
among the torn dandelion blooms he threw about the lawn. For Corbie was
like a human baby in many ways. He must handle what he loved, and spoil
it with his playing.

Perhaps Corbie inherited his dancing from his grandfather. It may have
come down to him with that old crow's merry spirit. Whether it was all
his own or in part his grandfather's, it was a wonderful dance, so full
of joy that the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl would leave their
play to watch him, and would call the Grown-Ups of the household, that
they, too, might see Corbie's "Happy Dance."

If he was pleased with his cleverness in hiding some pretty beetle in a
crack and covering it with a chip, he danced. If he spied the shiny
nails in the to