believe he did it out of the kindness of his heart.  If it was Farmer Brown’s boy I would know that all is well; that he was thinking of hungry Ducks, with few places where they can feed in safety, as they make the long journey from the Far North to the Sunny South.  But it wasn’t Farmer Brown’s boy.  I don’t like the looks of it.  I don’t indeed.  I’ll keep watch of this place and see what happens.”

All the way to his favorite perch in a certain big hemlock-tree in the Green Forest, Blacky kept thinking about that corn and the man who had seemed to be generous with it, and the more he thought, the more suspicious he became.  He didn’t like the looks of it at all.

“I’ll warn the Quacks to keep away from there.  I’ll do it the very first thing in the morning,” he muttered, as he prepared to go to sleep.  “If they have any sense at all, they will stay in the pond of Paddy the Beaver.  But if they should go over to the Big River, they would be almost sure to find that corn, and if they should once find it, they would keep going back for more.  It may be all right, but I don’t like the looks of it.”

And still full of suspicions, Blacky went to sleep.

CHAPTER XIX:  Blacky Makes More Discoveries

   Little things you fail to see
   May important prove to be.
    — Blacky the Crow.

One of the secrets of Blacky’s success in life is the fact that he never fails to take note of little things.  Long ago he learned that little things which in themselves seem harmless and not worth noticing may together prove the most important things in life.  So, no matter how unimportant a thing may appear, Blacky examines it closely with those sharp eyes of his and remembers it.

The very first thing Blacky did, as soon as he was awake the morning after he discovered the man scattering corn in the rushes at a certain place on the edge of the Big River, was to fly over to the pond of Paddy the Beaver and again warn Mr. and Mrs. Quack to keep away from the Big River, if they and their six children would remain safe.  Then he got some breakfast.  He ate it in a hurry and flew straight over to the Big River to the place where he had seen that yellow corn scattered.

Blacky wasn’t wholly surprised to find Dusky the Black Duck, own cousin to Mr. and Mrs. Quack the Mallard Ducks, with a number of his relatives in among the rushes and wild rice at the very place where that corn had been scattered.  They seemed quite contented and in the best of spirits.  Blacky guessed why.  Not a single grain of that yellow corn could Blacky see.  He knew the ways of Dusky and his relatives.  He knew that they must have come in there just at dusk the night before and at once had found that corn.  He knew that they would remain hiding there until frightened out, and that then they would spend the day in some little pond where they would not be likely to be disturbed or where at least no danger could approach them without being seen in plenty of time.  There they would rest all day, and when the Black Shadows came creeping out from the Purple Hills, they would return to that place on the Big River to feed, for that is the time when they like best to hunt for their food.