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.
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