The blackest coat may cover the kindest heart.

    Bowser the Hound.

When Blacky the Crow said to himself that he guessed he would take pity on Bowser and help him out of his trouble, he knew that he could do it without very much trouble to himself.  Perhaps if there had been very much trouble in it, Blacky would not have been quite so ready and willing.  Then again, perhaps it isn’t fair to Blacky to think that he might not have been willing.  Even the most selfish people are sometimes kindly and unselfish.

Blacky knew just where the nearest house was.  You can always trust Blacky to know not only where every house is within sight of the places he frequents, but all about the people who live in each house.  Blacky makes it his business to know these things.  He could, if he would, tell you which houses have terrible guns in them and which have not.  It is by knowing such things that Blacky manages to avoid danger.

“If that dog knows enough to follow me, I’ll take him where he can at least get something to eat,” muttered Blacky.  “It won’t be far out of my way, anyway, because if he has any sense at all, I won’t have to go all the way over there.”

So Blacky spread his black wings and disappeared over the tree-tops in the direction of the nearest farmhouse.

Bowser watched him disappear and whined sadly, for somehow it made him feel more lonesome than before.  But for one thing he would have gone back to his bed of hay in the corner of that sugar camp.  That one thing was hunger.  It seemed to Bowser that his stomach was so empty that the very sides of it had fallen in.  He just must get something to eat.

So, after waiting a moment or two, Bowser turned and limped away through the trees, and he limped in the direction which Blacky the Crow had taken.  You see, he could still hear Blacky’s voice calling “Caw, caw, caw”, and somehow it made him feel better, less lonesome, you know, to be within hearing of a voice he knew.

Bowser had to go on three legs, for one leg had been so hurt in the fall over the bank that he could not put his foot to the ground.  Then, too, he was very, very stiff from the cold and the wetting he had received the night before.  So poor Bowser made slow work of it, and Blacky the Crow almost lost patience waiting for him to appear.

As soon as Bowser came in sight, Blacky gave what was intended for a cheery caw and then headed straight for the place he had started for that morning, giving no more thought to Bowser the Hound.  You see, he knew that Bowser would shortly come to a road.  “If he doesn’t know enough to follow that road, he deserves to starve,” thought Blacky.

Bowser did know enough to follow that road.  The instant he saw that road, he knew that if he kept on following it, it would lead him somewhere.  So with new hope in his heart, Bowser limped along.