clan. And since about noon they had been gathering at the sugar bush. You could see them coming by twos and threes, flying leisurely, as is the way of crows. The sugar orchard, which was a large grove of several hundred rock maples, was splendidly adapted for such a gathering. The leaves were still thick enough on the trees to afford a screen for the proceedings. This grove was set apart from the rest of the woods, so that, by placing half a dozen sentries on the outskirts of the grove, they could be sure that they would not be surprised by any hunters. Not that any hunter would ever want to shoot a crow to eat, "eating crow" being a proverb referring to anything that is very unpalatable. But crows are such rascals that hunters often go out of their way to shoot them.
By three o'clock in the afternoon they had all assembled. The trees for an acre were black with them, old crows and young crows, shiny black crows and rusty crows, crows just hatched that spring, and crows who could boast a score of years at least. Most of them were
