His uncle eyed him narrowly.  He was always suspecting the Child of making game of him—­than which nothing could be further from the Child’s honest and rather matter-of-fact intentions.  The question, to be sure, was rather a poser.  While he pondered a reply to it—­apparently absorbed in the task of relighting his pipe—­the Child’s attention was diverted.  And forever the question of why bats get themselves misunderstood remained unanswered.

The bat chanced at the moment to be zig-zagging only a dozen feet or so away, when from the empty air above, as if created on the instant out of nothingness, dropped a noiseless, shadowy shape of wings.  It seemed to catch the eccentric little flutterer fairly.  But it didn’t—­for the bat was a marvelous adept at dodging.  With a lightning swerve it emerged from under the great wings and darted behind Uncle Andy’s head.  The baffled owl, not daring to come so near the hated man-creatures, winnowed off in ghostly silence.

At the same moment a tiny, quivering thing, like a dark leaf, floated to the ground.  There, instead of lying quiet like a leaf, it fluttered softly.

“What’s that?” demanded the Child.

“Hush!” ordered Uncle Andy in a peremptory whisper.

The shadowy leaf on the ground continued to flutter, as if trying to rise into the air.  Presently the bat reappeared and circled over it.  A moment more and it dropped, touched the ground for a second with wide, uplifted wings, and then sailed off again on a long, swift, upward curve.  The fluttering, shadowy leaf had disappeared.

For once the Child had no questions ready.  He had so much to ask about all at once.  His eyes like saucers with interrogation, he turned appealingly to his uncle and said nothing.

“That was the little one—­one of the two little ones,” said Uncle Andy obligingly.

“But what?—­why?—­”

“You see,” went on Uncle Andy, hastening to explain before he could be overwhelmed, “your poor little friend was a mother bat, and she was carrying her two young ones with her, clinging to her neck with their wings, while she was busy hunting gnats and moths and protecting your nose from mosquitoes.  When the owl swooped on her, and so nearly caught her, she dodged so violently that one of the little ones was jerked from its hold.  Being too young to fly, it could do nothing but flutter to the ground and squat there, beating its wings till the mother came to look for it.  How she managed to pick it up again so neatly, I can’t say.  But you saw for yourself how neat it was, eh?”

The Child nodded his head vigorously and smacked his lips in agreement.

“But why does she carry them around with her that way?” he inquired.  “It seems to me awfully dangerous.  I don’t think I’d like it.”

He pictured to himself his own substantial mamma swooping erratically through the air, with skirts flying out behind and himself clinging precariously to her neck.  And at the thought he felt a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach.