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Crawford, the crow, lived in a
garden filled with giant yellow sunflowers with black centers. Some of the
leaves were bigger than he was, which was good when it was very hot
outside and he needed to find shade. Everywhere he looked in the garden,
he saw bright yellow petals. The center of each of the sunflowers was
filled with seeds.
Crawford tended to every flower,
keeping them watered, weeded and free of bugs. At harvest time he picked
each seed, examined them for perfection and then put them into a burlap
sack to save for winter. He had a special place in his garden where he
kept the burlap sacks. They were stacked on top of each other, reaching
almost as high as the giant sunflowers. The imperfect seeds were put aside
and eaten everyday for snacks.
Crawford lived happily in his
garden. Some days he stood in the dirt, looking at the colors surrounding
him. There were yellow petals, as bright as the sunshine, green leaves and
stems and brown dirt under his feet. He also loved the blue color of the
sky, the whites and grays of the clouds and he even loved the glossy black
of his own feathers.
One day, as Crawford was weeding
with his hoe, another crow flew down from the sky above and landed on top
of the biggest of all his sunflowers. To his horror, it began to peck at
the seeds in the center. "Caw! Caw!" Crawford cried out, dropping the hoe
and running over to the flower. "My precious seeds! Leave them alone! Caw!
Caw!"
The crow looked down at a frantic
Crawford. It flew down to the ground next to him. "I’m sorry," she told
him. "I didn’t know it was your garden," she apologized.
"Caw! Caw!" Crawford squawked again,
trying to calm down. "It is my garden! I’d appreciate it if you left right
now!"
"I’m Cynthia. I flew many miles and
I’m tired and hungry. May I please rest here for just a little while? I’ll
leave soon, I promise," she pleaded.
"No! You must go right now. I can’t
risk my precious sunflowers being ruined, even on accident!" Crawford
demanded, very worried about his garden.
 Cynthia hung her head low. "I’ll
leave then," she said, sadly. She walked away, leaving Crawford standing
among his garden of sunflowers. She turned and looked back at him, sighed
and then walked over to a nearby patch of dandelions. They were soft and
fluffy and made her feel better just by touching them. She smiled, happy
to have a place to rest. She lay down on the soft petals and fell asleep.
Crawford stood, watching Cynthia
walk away and then went back to watering, hoeing and weeding. He had a
hard time concentrating on his work. He kept picturing how sad she had
looked. "Maybe I was a little bit mean to her," he said. He put his hoe
and water can down and went looking for her. He found her sound asleep in
the bed or dandelions. Crawford let her sleep and walked around to think.
He came upon a patch of green striped watermelon, growing among thick and
tangled vines and leaves. He thought they looked ready to eat, so he
searched for a rock or stick to break one of them open. He picked up a
big, speckled rock with his wing, walked over to the watermelon and began
hitting it. It took only a few strikes before it burst open, exposing the
juicy, reddish-pink flesh, full of little black seeds.
"What have we here?" he asked. "My,
oh my. What a delicious looking melon." He took a deep breath. "Ahhhhhh.
It smells even better than it looks." With his wing he scooped out a big
chunk.
"Excuse me! What are you doing? This
isn’t your watermelon patch too, is it?" Cynthia asked, surprising
Crawford.
He turned and looked at her. She
seemed to be very angry. Crawford dropped the chunk of watermelon on the
ground. "I came looking for you. I found you asleep in the dandelions. I
saw these watermelon over here and no, they aren’t mine." He continued,
"Would you care to join me?" He scooped another chunk of the juicy melon
out and handed it to her. "Here you go," he said.
The starving Cynthia gobbled it up,
letting the juice drip all over her black feathers. Crawford joined her
and the two of them ate the whole melon, right down to the rind. All that
was left, besides the rind, was a pile of slippery black seeds. Both crows
rubbed their fat little tummies and then sat down on one of the thick
vines. "I think I need a nap now," suggested Crawford. He stood up,
stretched his wings and yawned. His big yellow beak opened wide.
"Me too," giggled Cynthia.
Crawford said, "Cynthia, why don’t
you come with me to my garden to stay. You can help me weed and tend to my
beautiful sunflowers. We could do things like this every day."
Cynthia smiled and answered, "Thank
you, Crawford. I’d like that."
The two of them flew back to
Crawford’s garden, found some soft dirt under one of the giant sunflower
leaves and took a short nap. As they slept, a gentle breeze blew the
erupting dandelions, scattering their little white feathery helicopters
through the air. Some landed on the pile of sticky watermelon seeds that
Cynthia and Crawford had eaten earlier. Others floated across the deep
blue sky, heading towards the horizon. The sun looked down on the two
napping crows and began to follow the floating dandelion seeds into
nighttime. |
