“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.