Remembering the Crow

It was the summer before we started Hillsboro. The days were balmy and we were rising freshmen. We didn't know that schools could burn down. One day, a bunch of us gathered at Charlotte Kinnard's house for an afternoon of unsupervised slow dancing to records. The funny thing is, I don't remember any of the other girls there, besides Charlotte. But I do know that Rick Drewry was there.

Rick remembers that, at one point, he went outside and sat down in a swing that was part of a child's swing set. Soon after that, a big, black crow flew down and sat on the top of the swing frame. The crow looked down at Rick and said, "Hello!"

Rick was astonished. A crow had never spoken to him before. He told Charlotte what happened and how it had startled him. Charlotte said that anybody would have been startled by that.

I wish that I had been out there. I could have saved Rick half a century of wondering about it.

I knew this crow. His name was Sam. He was the crow in our family. He lived in a chicken wire cage, the size of a phone booth, that my mother had gotten somebody to build in our yard.

There was a latch on the cage door and Sam figured out how to pull it up and let himself out. So he could fly free whenever he wanted to. But mainly, he followed my brothers and me around. He was often seen at Stokes School, perched on the back corner of the building and making a lot of noise, when any of us were out at recess.

So I’m sure he just followed me down to Charlotte’s house to see what I was up to, and maybe to see if there was anybody there that he could meet.