`` But this is different , '' whispered the tempter . `` This is n't like taking the eggs of the little song birds . '' CHAPTER XII : A Tree-Top Battle As black is black and white is white , So wrong is wrong and right is right . There is n't any half way about it . A thing is wrong or it is right , and that is all there is to it . But most people have hard work to see this when they want very much to do a thing that the still small voice way down inside tells them is n't right . They try to compromise . To compromise is to do neither one thing nor the other but a little of both . But you ca n't do that with right and wrong . It is a queer thing , but a half right never is as good as a whole right , while a half wrong often , very often , is as bad as a whole wrong . Farmer Brown 's boy , up in the tree by the nest of Hooty the Owl in the lonesome corner of the Green Forest , was fighting a battle . No , he was n't fighting with Hooty or Mrs. Hooty . He was fighting a battle right inside himself . It was a battle between right and wrong . Once upon a time he had taken great delight in collecting the eggs of birds , in trying to see how many kinds he could get . Then as he had come to know the little forest and meadow people better , he had seen that taking the eggs of birds is very , very wrong , and he had stopped stealing them . He bad declared that never again would he steal an egg from a bird . But never before had he found a nest of Hooty the Owl . Those two big eggs would add ever so much to his collection . `` Take 'em , '' said a little voice inside .
`` XXXXX is a robber .
Brown CHAPTER Forest Hooty XII bird corner forest right stealing