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.