“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.