Chapter 5 - Page 2

asked. "If you make the clock three or four hours slow the trumpeter won't trumpet until six or seven or eight o'clock. And I'm sure that's late enough for anybody to get up."

Buster shook his head mournfully.

"We haven't any clock at our house," he explained.

"Then----" said old Mr. Crow, "then, if you want more sleep why don't you go to bed earlier? If you went to bed three or four hours before sunset you wouldn't mind getting up at dawn."

"Hurrah!" Buster shouted. "That's just what I'll do! And I'm certainly much obliged to you, Mr. Crow, for helping me."

"Don't mention it," said the old gentleman, looking greatly pleased with himself.

"I won't tell anybody," Buster promised.

"Oh, I didn't mean that, exactly," Mr. Crow told him hastily. "If you want to inform your friends how clever I am, I have no objection, of course."

Then Buster went off, thinking what a kind person old Mr. Crow was. And that very afternoon, long before sunset, he curled himself up in an out-of-the-way corner of the house and went to sleep. Everybody was so busy hurrying in and out in order to finish the day's work that no one noticed or disturbed him. And when the trumpeter sounded the rising call the next morning Buster Bumblebee was actually the first one in the house to open his eyes and jump up and hasten out to get his breakfast.

All of which only went to prove that old Mr. Crow knew a thing or two--and maybe even more.