a resolution and quite another thing to live up to it, as you all
know. It was easy enough to say that he would forget, but not at all
easy to forget. It would have been different if it had been spring
or early summer, when there were plenty of other eggs to be had by
any one smart enough to find them and steal them. But now, when it
was still winter (such an unheard-of time for any one to have
eggs!), and it was hard work to find enough to keep a hungry Crow's
stomach filled, the thought of those eggs would keep popping into
his head. He just couldn't seem to forget them. After a little, he
didn't try.

Now Blacky the Crow is very, very cunning. He is one of the smartest
of all the little people who fly. No one can get into more mischief
and still keep out of trouble than can Blacky the Crow. That is
because he uses the wits in that black head of his. In fact, some
people are unkind enough to say that he spends all his spare time in
planning mischief. The more he thought of those eggs, the more he
wanted them, and it wasn't long before he began to try to plan some
way to get them without risking his own precious skin.

"I can't do it alone, " thought he, "and yet if I take any one into
my secret, I'll have to share those eggs. That won't do at all,
because I want them myself. I found them, and I ought to have
them." He quite forgot or overlooked the fact that those eggs
really belonged to Hooty and Mrs. Hooty and to no one else. "Now let
me see, what can I do?"

He thought and he thought and he thought and he thought, and little
by little a plan worked out in his little black head. Then he
chuckled. He chuckled right out loud, then hurriedly looked around