They all wanted to be robber captain, it seemed. They streamed away to the barn, wrangling over this.
All but one. The youngest Thor, newer than the others to the god-business, still hung over the wire-netting, grieving, “Seems ’s if ... if we could only tell them! They love angleworms so!” he said pityingly. “If I could only think of some way to teach them how to stand around quietly, and each one get all he wanted to. They’d have such a good time!” he yearned over them.
As I said nothing, he asked of the world in general, “Why won’t they? Oh, why won’t they?”
I let fall insidiously, “I wonder how the angleworms like it?” The little god stared at me with startled eyes; and then at the worms. He looked at them as though he saw them for the first time. His tender young face was fairly vacant with his surprise before a new idea.
Then he began slowly to climb over the wire-netting.
When I went back to the dahlia-bed, he was carefully burying the angleworms again.
His young face wore an expression of puzzled bewilderment.