Nathan Coulter Read Online Free Page B

look at him?”
    The boy said, “You can if you’ll be careful not to hurt him. Grandfather’s going to let me take him home with me.”
    â€œSure. I won’t bother him.” Brother put the crow on his shoulder and smoothed its feathers. “Say,” he said, “I’ll bet you don’t know much about crows.”
    â€œNot much. Grandfather says they’ll eat about anything, and if you split their tongues they’ll talk.”
    â€œI can show you a little trick about crows. You want to see it?”
    â€œYes,” the boy said.
    Brother motioned to me to come and help him. I held the crow while he got the dynamite cap and the piece of fuse out of his pocket. The boy came up and watched Brother put the fuse into the cap and crimp the cap against a rock.
    â€œHere,” Brother told me. “Hold his tail feathers up.”
    I held the tail feathers up and he poked the cap into the crow’s bung-hole. I gave him a match and he struck it on his shoe.
    â€œNow you watch,” Brother said. “You’ll learn something about crows.” He lit the fuse and pitched the crow up in the air.
    The crow flew around over our heads for a minute, and Brother and I got out of the way. Then he looked around and saw that little ball of fire following him, spitting like a mad tomcat. He really got down to business then. He planned to fly right off and leave that fire. But it caught up with him over old man Crandel’s barn. BLAM! And feathers and guts went every which way. Where the crow had been was a little piece of blue sky with a ring of smoke and black feathers around it.
    Brother and I took off over the fence. When we looked back the boy was still standing there with his mouth open, staring up at the place where the crow had exploded. He started to cry. I felt sorry for him when I saw that, but there was nothing to do but run.

    When we got back to the graveyard we were out of sight of the Crandels’ house and we stopped running. The angel on top of the monument was looking in the direction of town. I could still hear the explosion going off.
    Brother said, “He thought a lot of that crow.”
    â€œHe was crying,” I said.
    It was late; but we wouldn’t have supper until dark, after Daddy quit work, and we didn’t hurry.
    â€œDo you think Mrs. Crandel heard the explosion?” I asked.
    â€œIf she wasn’t dead she did.”
    â€œIf she didn’t he’ll tell her.”
    â€œWhoo,” Brother said.
    Big Ellis and Gander Loyd had gone home by the time we got to town. Mushmouth and Chicken Little Montgomery were sitting by themselves in front of the drugstore, and we walked down the other side of the street to keep them from seeing us. If one of them had pointed at us and said, “There go Tom and Nathan Coulter, and they just blew up a poor old boy’s crow,” we couldn’t have said a word. The sun had gone down and the nighthawks were flying. I was glad Brother and I were together.
    When we were outside town again Brother said, “We’ll tell Uncle Burley about it when we get home. He’ll get a kick out of it.”
    That made us feel a little better. But Uncle Burley was still at the fence row with Grandpa and Daddy when we got there. They were busy, and we didn’t go where they were.

    By the time we got home that evening Mrs. Crandel had telephoned our mother and told on us. Mother made us stay at the house until Daddy came in from work. We sat on the back porch and waited for him.
    When he came Mother told him what we’d done, and he cut a switch and whipped us. He was already mad at us for riding old Oscar, and he whipped us for that too while he was at it.
    â€œNow I know what that crow felt like,” I told Brother.
    â€œThat crow never felt it,” Brother said. “He was dead before he heard the explosion.”
    The next morning Daddy said that if we didn’t stay out of