The Crows

It was a hot day at the farm. Farmer Jenkins worked all morning in the corn field. Now he was tired. He went home for lunch.

It was very quiet outside. Two black crows sat on an old fence nearby. Jim, the smaller crow, looked at all the ears of corn waving in the breeze.

“I’m so hungry,” Jim said. “Let’s go peck at some corn for lunch.”

Jill was much bigger than Jim, but she was not very brave. “What if the farmer comes back?” she asked.

Jim puffed up the feathers on his chest. “I’m not afraid of the farmer,” Jim said. “He can’t catch me if I fly away.”

Jill had been watching Farmer Jenkins all morning. It was true that he couldn’t fly. He worked very hard on the ground, though.

Jim flew into the corn field and sat on one of the tall stalks. He used his beak to break off an ear of corn. He flew back to the fence and held the corncob out to Jill. “Take some!” he said.

Jill nibbled the corn. It was yellow and sweet. She ate a few kernels and stopped to look down the road toward the farmer’s house.

Jim was eating very quickly. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you hungry?”

“I am hungry,” said Jill, “but it doesn’t seem right to eat this corn. It doesn’t belong to us. We didn’t do any of the hard work to grow it.”

Jim stopped eating and thought. “But we don’t know how to plant our own corn,” he said.

Jill nodded. “I know,” she said. “But I think the berries in the forest will taste better because I won’t feel bad about taking the farmer’s food from him. I’d rather eat those and find some worms and bugs.”

Jim finished eating all the little corn kernels on his ear of corn. Instead of getting another one, he decided to fly with Jill to the forest. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go!”

And with that, the two birds flew away, leaving almost all of Farmer Jenkins’ corn waiting to be picked and eaten for his supper.