THE BLACK IMPS OF PINE-TOP
"I think I'd _like_ to be a bird," murmured the Babe, wistfully gazing
up at the dark green, feathery top of the great pine, certain of whose
branches were tossing and waving excitedly against the blue, although
there was not a breath of wind to ruffle the expanse of Silverwater.
"I _think_ I'd like it--rather." He added the qualification as a
prudent after-thought, lest Uncle Andy should think him foolish.
"In _summer_!" suggested Uncle Andy, following the Babe's eyes toward
the agitated pine-top.
"Of _course_ in summer!" corrected the Babe hastily. "It must be awful
to be a bird in winter!" And he shuddered.
"You'd better not say 'of course' in that confident way," said Uncle
Andy rather severely. "You know so many of the birds go away south in
the winter; and they manage to have a pretty jolly time of it, I should
think."
For a moment the Babe looked abashed. Then his face brightened.
"But then, it _is_ summer, for _them_, isn't it?" said he sweetly.
Uncle Andy gave him a suspicious look, to see if he realized the
success of his retort. "Had me there!" he thought to himself. But the
Babe's face betrayed no sign of triumph, nothing but that eager
appetite for information of which Uncle Andy so highly approved.
"So it depends on what kind of a bird, eh, what?" said he, deftly
turning the point. Then he scratched a sputtering sulphur match on the
long-suffering leg of his trousers.
"Yes," said the Babe, with more decision now. "I'd like to be a crow."
Uncle Andy smoked meditatively for several minutes before replying,
till the Babe began to grow less confident as to the wisdom of his
choice. But as he gazed up at those green pine-tops, so clear against
the blue, all astir with black wings and gay, excited _ca_-ings, he
took courage again. Certainly _those_ crows, at least, were enjoying
themselves immensely.
And he had always had a longing to be able to play in the tops of the
trees.
"Well," said Uncle Andy at last, "perhaps you're not so _very_ far off,
this time. If I couldn't be an eagle, or a hawk, or a wild goose, or
one of those big-horned owls that we hear every night, or a
humming-bird, then I'd rather be a crow than most. A crow has got
enemies, of course, but then he's got brains, so that he knows how to
make a fool of most of his enemies. And he certainly does manage to
get a lot of fun out of life, taking it all in all, except when the owl
comes gliding around his roosting places in the black nights, or an
extra bitter midwinter frost catches him after a rainy thaw."
He paused and drew hard on his pipe, with that far-away look in his
eyes which the Babe had learned to regard as the forerunner to a story.
There were some interesting questions to ask, of course; but though
bursting with curiosity as to why anyone should find it better to be a
wild goose, or even a hummingbird, than a crow, the Babe sternly
repressed himself. He would ask those questions by and by, that he
promised himself. But he had learned that to speak inopportunely was
sometimes to make Uncle Andy change his mind and shut up like an
oyster. He was determined that he would not open his mouth till the
story should be well under way, till his uncle should be himself too
much interested to be willing to stop. And then, to his horror, just
as he was recording this sagacious resolution in his mind, he heard
himself demanding:
"But why after a rainy thaw?"
It was out before he could choke it back. There was nothing for him to
do but stick to it and gaze at his uncle with disarming innocence.
Uncle Andy turned upon him a glance of slow contumely.
"If you were going to be caught out in a blizzard, would you rather be
in dry clothes or in wet ones?" he inquired.
The Babe smiled apologetically and resumed his study of the agitated
pine-tops, whence, from time to time, a crow, or two or three, would
burst forth for a brief, whirling flight, as if to show how it was
done. Then other flights were made, which seemed to the Babe extremely
brief and hesitating, as if the flyers were nervous when they found
themselves out clear of the branches and suspended on their own wings
over the empty deeps of air. Presently there was a sudden tumultuous
outburst of _ca_-ing, the branches shook, and a whole flock, perhaps
two score or more, swarmed into the air. After a few moments of
clamorous confusion they all flew off in the direction of the muddy
flats at the lower end of the lake. The pine-tops subsided into
stillness. But an occasional hoarse croak or muttered guttural showed
that a few of their occupants had been left at home. The Babe wondered
what it had all been about, but he succeeded in holding his tongue.
In a moment or two this heroic self-restraint had its reward.
"Trying to show some of the youngsters how to fly, and jeering at the
timid ones and the stupid ones!" explained Uncle Andy.
"Oh!" said the Babe, with a long, appreciative inflection.
Uncle Andy paused, leaving an opening for more questions. But the Babe
refused to be drawn, so presently, with a comprehending grin, he went
on:
"It's rather a small affair for crows, you know, this colony of theirs
here on Silverwater. I suppose they've been crowded out from the
places they really prefer, along the skirts of the settlements on the
other side of the Ridge. They would rather live always somewhere near
the farms and the cleared fields. Not that they have any special
affection for man. Far from it. They dislike him, and distrust him,
and seem to think him a good deal of a fool, too. His so-called
'scarecrows' are a great joke to them, and have been known at times to
afford some fine materials for the lining of their nests. But they
find him so useful in many really important ways that they establish
their colonies in his neighborhood whenever they possibly can."
Here Uncle Andy made another long pause. He looked at the Babe
suspiciously.
"Is anything the matter?" he demanded.
"No, thank you, Uncle Andy," replied the Babe politely.
"But you haven't asked a single question for at least seven minutes,"
said Uncle Andy.
"I was too busy listening to you," explained the Babe. "But there's
one I'd like to ask, if it's all the same to you."
"Well, fire away," said his uncle.
"_Why_ did they all fly away like that, as if they had just remembered
something awfully important? And why would you rather be a little tiny
humming-bird than a crow? And why did it take the whole flock that way
to teach the young ones to fly? And--and why are they afraid, when
they are _born_ to fly? And why do they make fun of the stupid ones?
And why would you like to be a wild goose? And, and--"
"Stop! stop!" cried Uncle Andy. "I didn't know you had a Gatling
about you when I told you to fire away. You wait and shoot those
questions at Bill, just like that, to-night."
"Well, but why--"
"No, you must not interrupt," insisted Uncle Andy.
"But you _asked_ me! I was just as quiet--"
"I didn't know what I was doing!" said his uncle. "And I can't
possibly answer all those questions. Why, I could never begin to
remember half of them."
"I can," interposed the Babe.
"Oh, you needn't mind," said Uncle Andy, hastily. "But perhaps, if you
listen with great care, you _may_ find answers to some of them in what
I am going to tell you. Of course, I don't promise, for I don't know
what you asked me. But _maybe_ you'll hear something that will throw
some light on the subject."
"Thank you very much," said the Babe.
"There were only two young ones in the nest," said Uncle Andy, in his
sometimes irrelevant way, which seemed deliberately designed to make
the Babe ask questions. "The nest was a big, untidy structure of
sticks and dead branches; but it was strongly woven for all its
untidiness, because it had to stand against the great winds sweeping
down over the Ridge. Inside it was very nicely and softly lined with
dry grass, and some horse-hair, and a piece of yellow silk from the
lining of what had once been a ruffle or something like that that women
wear. The nest was in a tall pine, which stood at one end of a grove
of ancient fir trees overlooking a slope of pasture and an old white
farmhouse with a big garden behind it. Nearly all the trees had crows'
nests in their tops, but in most of the other nests there were three or
four young crows."
As Uncle Andy paused again at this point the Babe, who was always
polite, felt that he was really expected to ask a question here. If he
did not, it might look as if he were not taking an interest. He would
rather ask too many questions than run the risk of seeming
inappreciative.
"_Why_ were there only two young ones in the nest in the pine tree?" he
inquired.
It was very hard to know sometimes just what would please Uncle Andy,
and what wouldn't. But this time it was quite all right.
"Now, that's a proper, sensible question," said he. "I was just coming
to that. You see, there ought to have been four youngsters in that
nest, too, for there had been four greeny-blue, brown-spotted eggs to
start with. But even crows have their troubles. And the pair that
owned this particular nest were a somewhat original and erratic couple.
When the mother had laid her last egg and was getting ready to sit, she
decided to take an airing before settling down to work. Though her
mate was not at hand to guard the nest, she flew off down to the farm
to see if there was anything new going on among those foolish men, or
perhaps to catch a mouse among the cornstalks."
"Do _crows_ eat _mice_?" demanded the Babe in astonishment.
"Of course they do," answered Uncle Andy impatiently. "Everybody that
eats meat at all eats mice, except us human beings. And in some parts
of the world we, too, eat them, dipped in honey."
"Oh--h--h!" shuddered the Babe.
"Well, as I was going to say when you interrupted me, no sooner was she
well out of the way than a red squirrel, who had been watching from the
nearest fir tree, saw his chance. It was a rare one. Nobody liked
eggs better than he did, or got fewer of them. Like a flash he was
over from the fir branches into the pine ones, and up and into the nest.
"His sharp teeth went into the nearest egg, and he drank its contents
greedily--and cleverly, let me tell you, for it's not so easy to manage
without getting it all over your fur. He was just going to begin on
another when there was a sharp hiss of wings just above him and a loud
_ca-ah_ of alarm. The father bird was back and swooping down upon him.
He threw himself clear of the nest, fell to a lower branch, and raced
out to its tip to spring into his fir tree. At this moment the furious
father struck him, knocking him clean off into the air.
"The air was now full of black wings and angry cries, as the crows from
neighboring nests flocked to the help of their fellow citizen. But the
little red robber was brave and kept his head. Spreading his legs wide
and flat, he made a sort of parachute of himself, and, instead of
falling like a stone, he glided down to another branch. Those beating
wings and terrible jabbing beaks were all about him, but they got in
each other's way. And he was a wonder at dodging, I can tell you, now
that he was among the bigger branches, and, though he got several nasty
thrusts, which covered his fine coat with blood, he gained his hole,
halfway down the tree, and whisked into it safely.
"Into this narrow retreat, of course, none of the crows dared to follow
him, knowing that they would there be at the mercy of his teeth. But
they gathered in fierce excitement about the entrance, scolding the
audacious thief at the top of their voices, and threatening him with
every kind of vengeance when he should dare to come out. And from time
to time one or another of the boldest would alight on the very edge of
the hole, cock his head, and peer in, to bounce away again instantly
with a startled squawk as the squirrel would jump up at him, chattering
with rage.
"In the midst of all this excitement the careless mother came hurrying
back. She had heard the row, of course. One could hear it all over
the parish. Unobserved, she flew straight to the nest. Her big, dark,
cunning eyes blazed for an instant, but she knew it was all her fault,
and she thought it best to make no fuss. Hastily she dropped the empty
shell over the side of the nest, and then took her place dutifully on
the three remaining eggs. In a few minutes the rest of the crows got
tired of scolding the squirrel in his hole and came _ca_-ing back to
the pine tree to talk the matter over. When her mate, all in a fume,
hopped onto the edge of the nest, the mother looked up at him with eyes
of cold inquiry, as much as to say: 'Well, I'd like to know what all
this fuss is about. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, acting that
way about a wretched squirrel!' Of course, she may not have said all
that. But she certainly gave all the other crows the impression that
there was nothing wrong about _her_ nest, and that they had better go
and look after their own. Thereupon they all said sarcastic things to
their fellow citizen and left him indignantly. He, poor fellow, found
it impossible to explain or justify himself, because his mate was
sitting on the eggs; so he flew off in a huff to try and find a
sparrow's nest to rob. When he came back he had taken pains to forget
just how many eggs there had ever been in the nest.
"Oh, yes, I know there were still three. Well, three or four days
later a boy came up from the farmhouse and climbed the pine tree, He
was not the kind of a boy that robs birds' nests, but he was making a
collection. He wanted just one crow's egg, and he had a theory that
birds cannot count. He liked crows--in fact, on that farm no one was
ever allowed to shoot crows or any other birds except the murderous
duck hawk, and he felt that the crows owed him _one_ egg, anyhow, in
return for the protection they enjoyed on his father's property.
"Now, you must not think he chose the pine tree because it was the
easiest to climb," went on Uncle Andy hurriedly, seeing in the Babe's
eyes that this point had to be cleared up at once. "In fact, it was
the _hardest_ to climb. Any one of the fir trees would have been
easier, and they all had crows' nests in them. But the boy knew that
he could not climb any of them without getting his clothes all over
balsam, which would mean a lot of inconvenient explanations with his
mother. So he went up the pine tree, of course, and spared his
mother's feelings.
"The crows displayed no sense of gratitude whatever. He might have
eggs, of course, that boy, but not _their_ eggs! They flapped around
him savagely, and made so much noise in his ears that he could not hear
himself think. But he kept his big straw hat pulled down well over his
eyes, and paid no attention whatever to the indignant birds. And
because he was so quiet and positive about it, not one of them _quite_
dared to actually touch him. The mother bird hopped off the nest
sullenly just as he was about to put his hand on her. He took one egg,
put it in his pocket, examined the nest with interest, and climbed down
again. Just as he was nearing the ground he broke the egg. This, of
course, made him feel not only sticky but somewhat embarrassed. He saw
that he might have some difficulty in explaining that pocket to his
mother. Even a great deal of balsam would have been better than _that_
egg. But he comforted himself with the thought that he would never
have been able to blow it, anyhow, on account of its being so advanced.
"And that's why there were only two young crows in that particular nest.
"But they were an altogether unusual pair, these two. In the first
place, receiving all the food and all the attention that were usually
divided among four or five, they had grown and feathered
extraordinarily fast, till now they were ready for flight, while their
fellows in the neighboring nests were still ragged and 'quilly'
looking. In the second place, they had inherited from their eccentric
parents an altogether surprising amount of originality. Their feathers
were beautifully firm and black and glossy, their beaks sharp and
polished; and in their full, dark, intelligent eyes there was an
impishness that even a crow might regard as especially impish."
"What's _impish_?" demanded the Babe.
"Goodness me! Don't you know what _impish_ is?" exclaimed Uncle Andy.
He thought a moment, and then, finding it a little difficult to
explain, he added with convenient severity:
"If you will listen, you'll find out, perhaps."
"Well, the two grew so fast that, before their parents realized at all
what precocious youngsters they were, they had climbed out upon the
edge of the nest and begun to stretch their fine wings. With hoarse
expostulations their father tried to persuade them back. But their
mother, who was not so conservative, chuckled her approval and flew off
to hunt young mice for them. Thus encouraged, they ignored their
father's prudent counsels, and hopped out, with elated squawks, upon
the branch. Whereupon the father, somewhat huffed, flew up to the very
topmost branch of the tree and perched there, swaying in the breeze,
and trying to forget his family cares. From this high post of
observation he presently caught sight of an eagle, winging his way up
from the swamp at the lower end of the valley. With a sharp signal cry
for volunteers, he dashed off in pursuit. He was joined by two other
crows who happened to be at leisure; and the three, quickly overtaking
the majestic voyager, began to load him with impertinence and abuse.
With their comparatively short but very broad wings the crows could
dodge so nimbly in the air that if was quite impossible for their great
enemy to catch them. He made no attempt to do so. Indignantly he
changed the direction of his flight, and began to soar, climbing
gradually into the blue in splendid, sweeping circles; while the crows,
croaking mockery and triumph, kept flapping above him and below,
darting at his eyes, and dashing with open beaks at the shining
whiteness of his crown. They dared not come near enough to actually
touch him, but they succeeded in making themselves most unpleasant.
The eagle glared at them steadily with his fierce, black-and-yellow
eyes, but otherwise seemed to pay them no attention whatever. Only he
kept mounting higher and higher, till at last his impish
tormentors--_impish_, I said--dared follow him no farther. They came
fluttering down hurriedly to more congenial levels, and flew back to
the grove to boast of their 'great victory.'"
"My, but that eagle must have felt awfully ashamed!" exclaimed the Babe.
"The _next_ day," continued Uncle Andy, without noticing the
interruption, "the two old crows began to think it would soon be time
to teach this independent pair of youngsters to fly. And they thought,
too, that they'd be able to manage it all by themselves, without any
help or advice from the rest of the flock. While they were thinking
about it, in the next tree, for they were not a great pair to stay at
home, you know, one of the youngsters, the female, gave an impatient
squawk, spread her wings, and fell off her branch. She thought it was
flying, you know, but at first she just fell, flapping her wings
wildly. In two seconds, however, she seemed to get the hang of it,
more or less. With a violent effort, she rose, gained the next tree,
alighted, panting, beside her parents and looked at them with a
superior air, as if she thought that they could never have accomplished
such a thing at her age. That was perhaps true, of course, but it was
not for her to think so."
"Huh! I should think not, indeed!" agreed the Babe severely.
"Well," continued Uncle Andy, now quite absorbed in his narrative, "the
other youngster, not to be outdone, went hopping up in great excitement
from branch to branch, till he was some ten feet above the rest of the
family. Then, launching himself boldly, he went fluttering down to
them with no difficulty at all. He was less impetuous and more
sagacious than his sister.
"After this the parents continued to feed their independent offspring
for a number of days, just because they had been accustomed to feed
their nestling for a certain length of time, till at last the
youngsters started off to forage on their own account, and the family,
as a family, broke up. From habit, however, or from good will, the
youngsters kept coming back to roost on the branches beside the nest,
and remained on the most friendly, though easy-going, relations with
their father and mother.
"In every crow flock, large or small, there seems to be some kind of
discipline, some kind of obedience to the wise old leaders of the
flock. But the two black imps of Pine-Top were apparently, for the
time at least, exempted from it. They did about as they liked and were
a nuisance to everybody but their two selves, whom they admired
immensely. Being too young for the old crows to take seriously, their
pranks were tolerated, or they would soon have been pecked and beaten
into better manners. Too big and too grown-up for the young
crows--whom they visited in their nests and tormented till driven away
by the indignant parents--they had no associates but each other. So
they followed their own whims; and the flock was philosophically
indifferent as to what might happen to them.
"You must not think, however, that they did not learn anything, these
two. They were sharp. They listened to what was being said around
them, and the crows, you know, are the greatest talkers ever; so they
soon knew the difference between a man with a gun and a man without
one. They knew that an owl in the daytime is not the same thing as an
owl at night. They gathered that a scarecrow is not as dangerous as it
looks. And many other things that a crow needs to know and believe
they condescended to learn, because learning came easy to them. But
common caution they did not learn, because it did not seem to them
either interesting or necessary. So it was often just luck that got
them out of scrapes, though they always thought it was their own
cleverness.
"It was just lucky, of course, that day when they went exploring in the
patch of dark woods down in the valley, that the big brown owl did not
get one or the other of them. He was asleep on a big dead branch as
brown as himself, and looking so like a part of it that they were just
going to alight, either upon him or within reach of his deadly clutch,
when a red squirrel saw them and shrieked at them. Two great, round,
glaring orange eyes opened upon them from that brown prong of the
branch, so suddenly that they gave two startled squawks and nearly fell
to the ground. How the red squirrel tittered, hating both the owl and
the crows. But the imps, when they got over their start, were furious.
Flying over the owl's head, they kept screaming at the top of their
voices something which probably meant 'an owl! an owl! an owl!'; and
immediately every other crow within hearing took up the cry, till in
two minutes half the flock were gathered in the patch of woods. They
swarmed screaming about the owl's head, striking at him with their
sharp beaks and strong black wings, but always too wary to come quite
within his reach. The great night prowler knew that in the daylight he
could not catch them--that, indeed, if he did succeed in catching one
in his claws the others would throw caution to the winds and all be
down upon him at once. He sat there, straight and stiff, for a while,
snapping his terrible beak and hissing at them like an angry cat. Till
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.
"There was always food to be picked up around the farmyard when the men
were absent in the fields, the womenfolk busy in the kitchen, and the
boy somewhere out of sight. And it was food doubly sweet because it
had to be stolen from the fussy hens or the ridiculous ducks or the
stupid, complacent pigeons. Then there was always something
interesting to be done. It was fun to bully the pigeons and to give
sly, savage jabs to the half-grown chicks. It was delightful to steal
the bright tops of tin tomato cans--they _thought_ they were stealing
them, of course, because they could not imagine such fascinating things
being thrown away, even by those fool men--to snatch them hurriedly,
fly off with them to the tall green pine-top, and hide them in their
old nest till they got it looking quite like a rubbish dump, and good
pasture for a goat. And most of all, perhaps, was it fun to tease the
lazy old kitchen cat, till her tail would get as big as a bottle brush
with helpless indignation."
"The _cat_?" exclaimed the Babe. "Why, weren't they afraid of _her_?"
"Wait and see!" remarked Uncle Andy simply, with no apologies whatever
to the Prime Minister. "Well, as I was about to say, their method was
simple and effective. They would wait till they found the cat lying
along the narrow top of the rail fence, sunning herself. It was her
favorite place, though it can hardly have been comfortable, it was so
narrow. The He imp would alight on the rail, about ten feet in front
of her, and pretend to be very sick, squawking feebly and drooping his
black wings with a struggling flutter, as if it was all he could do to
keep his perch. The cat, her narrow eyes opening very wide, would
start to creep up to him. The She imp would then alight on the rail
behind her and nip her sharply by the tail, and go hopping clumsily off
down the rail. The cat would wheel with an angry _pfiff-ff_, and start
after this new quarry. Whereupon the He imp would again nip her tail.
This would be repeated several times before the cat would realize that
she was being made a fool of. Then she would bounce down from the
fence and race off to the kitchen in a towering rage, and the impudent
youngsters would fly up into the nearest tree top and _ca_ about it
delightedly.
"Then there was the scarecrow, in the middle of the big strawberry
patch down at the foot of the huge garden. It did not scare these two
young rascals, not in the least. It was an excellently made scarecrow,
and did strike terror to the heart of many of the smaller birds. But
its hat was packed with straw, and the imps found it was a pleasant
game pulling the straws out through a couple of holes in the crown, and
strewing them over the strawberry bed. Incidentally, they liked
strawberries, and ate a good many of them as sauce to their ordinary
diet of grubs and mice and chicken feed. And it was this weakness of
theirs for strawberries that led to their misunderstanding with the
Boy, and then with the big rat that lived under the tool shed.
"That strawberry patch was one of the things that the Boy took a
particular interest in. When he saw that the imps also took such an
interest in it, eating the berries instead of the grubs, he began to
get annoyed. From his window, which overlooked the garden, he had seen
what liberties the imps took with the scarecrow, so he realized there
was no help for him in scarecrows. But _something_ must be done, that
he vowed, and done at once, or his strawberries were going to be mighty
scarce. He didn't want to do any real harm to even such a troublesome
pair of birds as the imps, but he was determined to give them a lesson
that might teach them some respect, not only for strawberry patches,
but even for scarecrows.
"On the crown of the scarecrow's old hat, which he had observed to be a
favorite perch of the imps, he arranged a noose of light cord. From
the noose he ran the cord down the scarecrow's single leg (scarecrows,
you know, have usually only one leg), across to the hedge, along the
hedge to the house, and up and into his room. He fixed it so it ran
without a hitch. He was very proud of it altogether. Much pleased
with himself, he got a book and a couple of apples, and seated himself
at his window to wait for his chance.
"As it happened, however, the imps were just then away in the meadow,
hunting mice. For a whole hour the Boy saw no sign of them. Then,
being called away to go on an errand into the village, he tied the end
of the cord to his bedpost, and left it with a word of advice to do
what it could in his absence.
"Well, it did! For a mere bit of string, all by itself, it didn't do
badly. First the old brown rat, with his fierce little eyes and
pointed, whiskered nose, came out from under the toolhouse and began
exploring the strawberry patch. He didn't think much of strawberries
in themselves, but he was apt to find fat grubs and beetles and sleepy
June bugs under the clustering leaves. He came upon the string,
stretched taut. He was just about to bite it through and try to carry
it off to his nest when it occurred to him it might be a trap. He
turned away discreetly, and snapped up a plump June bug.
"Then the imps came sailing along. The He imp, with a loud _ca-ah_,
perched in the top of a locust and reconnoitred the situation. The She
imp alighted on the head of the scarecrow, cocked her head to one side,
and peered down upon the rat with a wicked and insulting eye.
'_Cr-r-r-r_,' she said sarcastically. But, as the rat paid no
attention to her, she hopped up and down on her toes, half-lifting her
wings in the effort to attract his eye. She hated to be ignored. But
still the rat ignored her, though he saw her perfectly well and would
have loved to eat her. At last, in her excitement, she caught sight of
the cord running over the edge of the scarecrow's hat. Snatching it up
in her beak, she gave it an energetic and inquiring tug. She learned
something interesting about it at once. It grabbed her by one leg.
"Startled into a panic, as all wild things are at the least suggestion
of restraint, she squawked and flapped into the air. The noose
tightened rebukingly and pulled her up short.
"For one astounded moment she settled back onto the scarecrow's head,
frightened into stillness. Then she tweaked savagely at the cord on
her leg, but, of course, could do nothing with it. As far as knots
were concerned, her education had been utterly neglected. At last she
sprang once more into the air, determined to have nothing more to do
with the treacherous scarecrow who had stuck that thing on her leg.
"Of course, she didn't fly far--just about six feet--and she was again
brought up with a jerk. And now she went quite wild. Squawking and
flapping and whirling round and round, she made an amazing exhibition
of herself. Her brother, in the top of the locust, stared down upon
her in astonished disapproval. And the brown rat, interested at last,
came creeping stealthily to the scarecrow's foot and looked up at her
performance with cruel, glinting eyes.
"Now, as you may well imagine, this performance was something which
even the imp, strong as she was, could not keep up very long. In about
a minute she had to stop and take breath. She was going to alight on
the ground, when she remembered the rat. Yes, there he was. So she
had to take refuge once more on the hated and treacherous scarecrow.
But no sooner had she done so, alighting with open beak and
half-spread, quivering wings, than the rat came darting up the leg of
the scarecrow's ragged trousers and pounced at her. She _just_
escaped, and that was all, leaping into the air with a squawk of terror
and flapping there violently at the end of those six feet of free cord.
"It was a horrifying position for her, let me tell you--"
"I guess _so_!" muttered the Babe in spite of himself, wagging his head
sympathetically. He did not like rats.
"She was too frightened to save her strength, of course, and so kept
flapping with all her might, as if she thought to fly away with
scarecrow and all. The rat, however, was impatient. He clutched at
the cord with his handlike claws and began trying to pull the imp down
to him. At first he couldn't make much out of it, but as the imp
weakened with her frantic efforts the cord began to shorten. Just
about now the He imp, who had come down from the locust top and
fluttered over the scene in pained curiosity, realized what was
happening. He was game, all right, however bumptious and
self-satisfied. He set up a tremendous _ca-a-a-ing_, as a signal for
all the crows within hearing to come to the rescue, and then made a
sudden, savage side swoop at the foe.
"Taken thoroughly by surprise, the rat was toppled from his unsteady
perch and fell among the strawberries. His head ringing from the
stroke of that sturdy black wing, his plump flank smarting and bleeding
from a fierce jab of that pointed beak of the imp's, he squeaked with
rage and clambered up again to the battle. Mr. Rat, you know, is no
coward and no quitter.
"And now he was more dangerous, because he was ready. He sat warily on
his haunches, squeaking angrily, and turning his sharp head from side
to side as he followed every swoop and rush of the He imp, snapping so
dangerously that the latter did not dare come quite close enough to
deliver another really effective blow. At the same time, being very
clever indeed, the rat kept tugging, tugging, tugging at the cord. And
the She imp, being quite gone out of her mind with the terror of that
clutch on her leg, kept flapping crazily at the end of the cord instead
of turning to, like a sensible crow, and helping her brother in the
fight.
"As she grew weaker and weaker in her struggles, the cunning rat drew
her lower and lower, till at last she seemed fairly within his reach.
He lifted himself on his hindquarters to snap his long teeth into her
thigh and spring to the ground with her, where he would have her
completely at his mercy. But as he rose the He imp, at sight of his
sister's deadly peril, lost all sense of caution, and struck again with
all his strength of beak and wing. And once more the rat, fairly
bursting with rage, was swept to the ground.
"He was back to the attack again in a moment, and now more dangerous
than ever. And at the same time the She imp, utterly worn out at last
by her panic terror and her foolish violence, sank shuddering down upon
her perch. Her brother struck the rat again frantically when the
latter was halfway up the scarecrow's leg, but this time failed to
dislodge him. And it looked as if the poor She imp would never again
steal a strawberry or worry a pigeon. But at this moment the Boy
appeared in the garden. He came running up noiselessly, anxious to see
all that was happening. But the rat heard him. The rat had no use for
the Boy whatever. He knew that the whole human race was his enemy. He
dropped from the scarecrow's trouser leg and scurried off to his hole
beneath the toolhouse. The Boy, his face a mixture of amusement and
concern, picked up the captive without noticing her feeble pecks, undid
the noose from her leg, and carried her over the hedge to rest and
recover herself.
"'Now,' said he, 'you little imp of Satan, maybe you'll not come
stealing any more of my strawberries or pulling any more straw out of
my poor scarecrow's head!'
"And she never did!" concluded Uncle Andy, rising and stretching his
legs. "Those two were not _reformed_, you may be sure. But they kept
clear, after that, of the Boy's strawberry patch, and of _all
scarecrows_. It's time we were getting back to camp for supper, or
Bill will be feeling sour."
"But you haven't told me," protested the Babe, who had a most tenacious
memory, "why those crows all flew away out of the pine-top so suddenly,
as if they had just remembered something. And you haven't told me why
you'd rather be a humming-bird than a crow. And you haven't--"
But Uncle Andy stopped him.
"If you think I'm going to tell you all I know," said he, "you're
mistaken. If I did, you'd know as much as I do, and it wouldn't be any
fun. Some day you'll be glad I've left something for you to find out
for yourself."