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 farm