If you come right down to plain, everyday truth,
I suppose Blacky isn't so far wrong when he insists that he is no
more of a thief than Farmer Brown's boy. Blacky says that the eggs
which the bens lay belong to the hens, and that he, Blacky has just
as much right to take them as Farmer Brown's boy. He quite overlooks
the fact that Farmer Brown's boy feeds the biddies and takes the
eggs as pay. Anyway, that is what Farmer Brown's boy says, but I do
not know whether or not the biddies understand it that way.
So Blacky the Crow cannot see why he should not help himself to an
egg when he gets the chance. He doesn't get the chance very often to
steal eggs from the hens, because usually they lay their eggs in the
henhouse, and Blacky is too suspicious to venture inside. The eggs
he does get are mostly those of his neighbors in the Green Forest
and the Old Orchard. But once in a great while some foolish hen will
make a nest outside the henhouse somewhere, and if Blacky happens to
find it the black scamp watches every minute he can spare from other
mischief for a chance to steal an egg.
Now Blacky knows just what a rogue Farmer Brown's boy thinks he is,
and for this reason Blacky is very careful about approaching Farmer
Brown or any other man until he has made sure that he runs no risk
of being shot. Blacky knows quite as well as any one what a gun
looks like. He also knows that without a terrible gun, there is
little Farmer Brown or any one else can do to him.
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