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“If I could des git a-holt o’ some o’ dem fine sugar figs dat’s a-swivelin’ up every day on top o’ dem trees, I’d meck a heap o’ money peddlin’ ’em on de street.” And even while he thought this thought he licked his lips. There were, no doubt, other attractions about the figs for a very small boy with a very sweet tooth.

On the next morning after this, Crow rang the front gate-bell of the yard where the figs were growing.

“Want a boy to pick figs on sheers?” That was all he said to the fat old gentleman who had stepped around the house in answer to his ring.

Crow’s offer was timely.

Old Mr. Cary was red in the face and panting even yet from reaching up into the mouldy, damp lower limbs of his fig-trees, trying to gather a dishful for breakfast.

“Come in,” he said, mopping his forehead as he spoke.

“Pick on shares, will you?”

“Yassir.”

“Even?”

“Yassir.”

“Promise never to pick any but the very ripe figs?”

“Yassir.”

“Honest boy?”

“Yassir.”

“Turn in, then; but wait a minute.”

He stepped aside into the house, returning presently with two baskets.

“Here,” he said, presenting them both. “These are pretty nearly of a size. Go ahead, now, and let’s see what you can do.”

Needless to say, Crow proved a great success as fig-picker. The very sugary figs that old Mr. Cary had panted for and reached for in vain lay bursting with sweetness on top of both baskets.

The old gentleman and his wife were delighted, and the boy was quickly engaged to come every morning.

And this was how Crow went into the fig business.

Crow was a likable boy–“so bright and handy and nimble”–and the old people soon became fond of him.

They noticed that he always handed in the larger of the two baskets, keeping the smaller for himself. This seemed not only honest, but generous.

And generosity is a winning virtue in the very needy–as winning as it is common. The very poor are often great of heart.

But this is not a safe fact upon which to found axioms.

All God’s poor are not educated up to the point of even small, fine honesties, and the so-called “generous” are not always “just” or honest.

And–

Poor little Solomon Crow! It is a pity to have to write it, but his weak point was exactly that he was not quite honest. He wanted to be, just because his angel-twin might be watching him, and he was afraid of thunder. But Crow was so anxious to be “smart” that he had long ago begun doing “tricky” things. Even the men working the roads had discovered this. In eating Crow’s “fresh-boiled crawfish” or “shrimps,” they would often come across one of the left-overs of yesterday’s supply, mixed in with the others; and a yesterday’s shrimp is full of stomach-ache and indigestion. So that business suffered.

In the fig business the ripe ones sold well; but when one of Crow’s customers offered to buy all he would bring of green ones for preserving, Crow began filling his basket with them and distributing a top layer of ripe ones carefully over them. His lawful share of the very ripe he also carried away–in his little bread-basket.

This was all very dishonest, and Crow knew it. Still he did it many times.

And then–and this shows how one sin leads to another–and then, one day–oh, Solomon Crow, I’m ashamed to tell it on you!–one day he noticed that there were fresh eggs in the hen-house nests, quite near the fig-trees. Now, if there was anything Crow liked, it was a fried egg–two fried eggs. He always said he wanted two on his plate at once, looking at him like a pair of round eyes, “an’ when dey reco’nizes me,” he would say, “den I eats ’em up.”

Why not slip a few of these tempting eggs into the bottom of the basket and cover them up with ripe figs?

And so–,

One day, he did it.