"There's not very much to bite, you know," said Uncle Andy, in a carping mood at having had his reveries disturbed.
"I know it's pretty little, and turns up—rather," agreed the Child; "but I don't want anything to bite it."
"Nonsense!" said Uncle Andy. "Who'd want to?"
"It was that bat!" declared the Child, pointing to the shadowy form zigzagging over the fringe of bushes at the edge of the water. "He came down and hit me right in the face—almost."
"That bat bite you!" retorted Uncle Andy with a sniff of scorn. "Why, he was doing you the most friendly turn he knew how. No doubt there was a big mosquito just going to bite you, and that little chap there snapped it up in time to save you. There are lots of folk beside bats that get themselves misunderstood just when they are trying hardest to do some good."
"Oh, I see!" murmured the Child politely—which, of course, meant that he did not see at all what Uncle Andy was driving at. "Why do bats get themselves misunderstood, Uncle Andy?"
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.