"Oh, I didn't mean that, exactly," Mr. Crow told him hastily. "If you
want to inform your friends how clever I am, I have no objection, of
course."

Then Buster went off, thinking what a kind person old Mr. Crow was. And
that very afternoon, long before sunset, he curled himself up in an
out-of-the-way corner of the house and went to sleep. Everybody was so
busy hurrying in and out in order to finish the day's work that no one
noticed or disturbed him. And when the trumpeter sounded the rising call
the next morning Buster Bumblebee was actually the first one in the house
to open his eyes and jump up and hasten out to get his breakfast.

All of which only went to prove that old Mr. Crow knew a thing or
two--and maybe even more.




VI

JOHNNIE GREEN IS STUNG


There had been so much rain early in the summer that even by the middle
of August Farmer Green had not been able to finish his haying. His son
Johnnie was sorry, too--because he had to work in the hot hayfield almost
every day, when he would far rather have gone swimming in the mill-pond,
under the shade of the great willow.

Sometimes Johnnie rode on the hayrake. And since he liked to drive the