104 Fairy Tales :

think about them, but it always pleased him
to pretend that he was very slow and lazy.

“It's the hawk after the mouse-babies,” -
said Dick, ‘and I can’t get him away.”

“Oh, indeed!” said Agrippa, glancing up,
and his tail began to wave gently just at the
tip. ‘Oh, indeed !”

“He’s frightening them all out of their
wits, and he’s no business here,’ went on
Dick, talking like a grandfather. “I wish
you'd tell him to go.”

“I think he will go,” said Agrippa, as
lazily as ever, and indeed, whether Dick’s
shoutings or the sight of the big black cat
scared the hawk, certain it is that at this
moment he soared sullenly away over the
trees. Then the harvest mouse began to
wail tremulously.

‘Oh, my heart!” she cried, “it’s all of a
shake, and of course there’s Rusty away, and
so heedless that I shouldn’t in the least
wonder if he let himself be snapped up, and
I left with all these children to look after!
It’s too much, it really is too much!”