158 Bird - Lore
his fancy. Sometimes he would bury his finds, at other times drop them down acrack, think or knotihole in the floor—anywhere, in fact, where he could frequently go and peep at them. always doing so with the greatest air of se- crecy. I remember the first collection we came across, We were playing one day near a pile of wood, when Nettle, who was basking in the sun and playing idly with the Crow, suddenly jumped up and began snifi‘ing near where two projecting logs next the side of the outhouse made a dark little corner. As soon as King Cole noticed this he flew into the greatest state of excitement; he flounced on the dog's back, scolding and screaming, and tried to drive her away. Finding violence of no avail, he tried coaxing. Sprawling on the ground before her, he stuck one leg awkwardly out, in a manner which usually proved irresistible to Nettle, to tempt her to a frolic. However, even this failed to draw her off the scent, and she went on sniffing until she ran her head quite under the ends of the logs. King Cole now evidently gave up all for lost, for, with the light of a desperate resolve gleaming in his eye, he bundled himself, with screams of rage. between the dog’s feet, into where her shoulders could not pass. Scratching and burrowing with his beak, he unearthed presently a collection of crusts of bread, bones, bits of glass bottles, scraps of scarlet cloth, buttons, 3 broken knife—blade, and any number of pieces of buckwheat cakes. Determined that Nettle should not profit by her find, he fell upon the scraps of food and gobbled them up so fast that he very nearly choked himself to death. When Nettle was gotten away, there stood King Cole with a bit of griddle—cake crosswise in his beak, gasping for breath,—the very personification of selfish greed. Before night he had carried ofi all his treasures and hidden them afresh.
One day Meg was sitting at the open window sewing some buttons on her boots. She put her thimble down for a moment, and King Cole, who had been sitting on the low branch of a tree near by and crooning in an absent-minded sort of way to himself, suddenly dropped from his perch and pounced upon the thimble, He then flew to the ground with it, where he stood jabbering away, and looking saucily at Meg, first with one eye and then with the other. Out of consideration for my sister’s stockinged feet, I ran to get the thimble. Just as I put my hand out for it, off he flew with it again—this time to the garden palings, where he laid it carelessly on the top of a post, and turned to gaze abstractedly across the field as if he had dismissed all thoughts of the thimble from his wicked little mind. He even sidled some distance away from the post, so that l was quite deceived into thinking he meant to give it up. Not a bit of it! The moment my hand went out for it, like a flash of lightning he snatched it up and was off with it again. This was too much for my sister at the window, "Oh, you stupid!" she cried, an sallied forth, bootless, but full of confidence in her own powers. I can laugh, to this day, when I think of that chase! Before it ended, poor
