at last, realizing that there was no more chance of a peaceful sleep
for him there, he spread his huge, downy wings and sailed off smoothly
to seek some more secluded neighborhood. The whole flock pursued him,
with their tormenting and abuse, for perhaps a couple of miles; and
then, at some signal from their leaders, dropped the chase suddenly and
turned their attention to what looked like a sort of game of tag, in a
wide, open pasture where no enemy could steal upon them unawares. The
imps felt themselves great heroes, but if it had not been for that red
squirrel, the owl, sleepy though he was, would certainly have got one
of them."

The Babe wanted to ask whether the squirrel had warned them out of
friendliness or just out of dislike to the owl, but before he could
frame his question quite satisfactorily, or get out anything more than
a hasty "But why--?" Uncle Andy had gone on with an emphasis which
discouraged interruption.

"It was lucky for them, too, that no guns were fired on the big farm
below the grove--the crows were there believed to earn the corn they
stole by the grubs and cutworms and mice they killed. That was _very_
lucky for the two imps, for they were forever hanging about the
farmyard and the big locust trees that ran along the foot of the
garden. The farmer himself and his hired hands paid no attention to
them, but the boy, the one who had prevented there being three imps
instead of two, he was tremendously interested. At first they were shy
of him, because, perhaps, they felt him watching them out of the
corners of his keen blue eyes. But at last they decided he was no more
dangerous than the rest, and made sarcastic remarks about him in a
language which he couldn't understand.