Read Ebook: A successful venture by Deland Ellen Douglas Stephens Alice Barber Illustrator

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Ebook has 1233 lines and 67803 words, and 25 pages

When he came out, a minute later, there was the box and a feather or two, but no fox and no pullet. Deep tracks led out of the yard and up over the hill in flying jumps. Then it dawned upon our hunter that Reynard had played the possum-game on him, getting away with a whole skin and a good dinner.

There was no need to look farther for a good fox track. Soon the music of the hounds went ringing over the hill and down the hollow; but though the dogs ran true, and the hunter watched the runways all day with something more than his usual interest, he got no glimpse of the wily old fox. Late at night the dogs came limping home, weary and footsore, but with never a long yellow hair clinging to their chops to tell a story.

The fox saved his pullet, of course. Finding himself pursued, he buried it hastily, and came back the next night undoubtedly to get it.

Several times since then I have known of his playing possum in the same way. The little fellow whom I mentioned as living near the wilderness, and snaring foxes, once caught a black fox--a rare, beautiful animal with a very valuable skin--in a trap which he had baited for weeks in a wild pasture. It was the first black fox he had ever seen, and, boylike, he took it only as a matter of mild wonder to find the beautiful creature frozen stiff, apparently, on his pile of chaff with one hind leg fast in the trap.

He carried the prize home, trap and all, over his shoulder. At his whoop of exultation the whole family came out to admire and congratulate. At last he took the trap from the fox's leg, and stretched him out on the doorstep to gloat over the treasure and stroke the glossy fur to his heart's content. His attention was taken away for a moment; then he had a dazed vision of a flying black animal that seemed to perch an instant on the log fence and vanish among the spruces.

Poor Johnnie! There were tears in his eyes when he told me about it, three years afterwards.

These are but the beginning of fox-ways. I have not spoken of his occasional tree climbing; nor of his grasshopper hunting; nor of his planning to catch three quails at once when he finds a whole covey gathered into a dinner-plate circle, tails in, heads out, asleep on the ground; nor of some perfectly astonishing things he does when hard pressed by dogs. But these are enough to begin the study and still leave plenty of things to find out for one's self. Reynard is rarely seen, even in places where he abounds; we know almost nothing of his private life; and there are undoubtedly many of his most interesting ways yet to be discovered. He has somehow acquired a bad name, especially among farmers; but, on the whole, there is scarcely a wild thing in the woods that better repays one for the long hours spent in catching a glimpse of him.

Shelldrake, or shellbird, is the name by which this duck is generally known, though how he came to be called so would be hard to tell. Probably the name was given by gunners, who see him only in winter when hunger drives him to eat mussels--but even then he likes mud-snails much better.

The name fish-duck, which one hears occasionally, is much more appropriate. The long slender bill, with its serrated edges fitting into each other like the teeth of a bear trap, just calculated to seize and hold a slimy wriggling fish, is quite enough evidence as to the nature of the bird's food, even if one had not seen him fishing on the lakes and rivers which are his summer home.

That same bill, by the way, is sometimes a source of danger. Once, on the coast, I saw a shelldrake tying in vain to fly against the wind, which flung rudely among some tall reeds near me. The next moment Don, my old dog, had him. In a hungry moment he had driven his bill through both shells of a scallop, which slipped or worked its way up to his nostrils, muzzling the bird perfectly with a hard shell ring. The poor fellow by desperate trying could open his mouth barely wide enough to drink or to swallow the tiniest morsel. He must have been in this condition a long time, for the bill was half worn through, and he was so light that the wind blew him about like a great feather when he attempted to fly.

Fortunately Don was a good retriever and had brought the duck in with scarcely a quill ruffled; so I had the satisfaction of breaking his bands and letting him go free with a splendid rush. But the wind was too much for him; he dropped back into the water and went skittering down the harbor like a lady with too much skirt and too big a hat in boisterous weather. Meanwhile Don lay on the sand, head up, ears up, whining eagerly for the word to fetch. Then he dropped his head, and drew a long breath, and tried to puzzle it out why a man should go out on a freezing day in February, and tramp, and row, and get wet to find a bird, only to let him go after he had been fairly caught.

Kwaseekho the shelldrake leads a double life. In winter he may be found almost anywhere along the Massachusetts coast and southward, where he leads a dog's life of it, notwithstanding his gay appearance. An hundred guns are roaring at him wherever he goes. From daylight to dark he has never a minute to eat his bit of fish, or to take a wink of sleep in peace. He flies to the ocean, and beds with his fellows on the broad open shoals for safety. But the east winds blow; and the shoals are a yeasty mass of tumbling breakers. They buffet him about; they twist his gay feathers; they dampen his pinions, spite of his skill in swimming. Then he goes to the creeks and harbors.

Then the weather grows cold, and a freeze-up covers all his feeding grounds. Under his beautiful feathers the bones project to spoil the contour of his round plump body. He is famished now; he watches the gulls to see what they eat. When he finds out, he forgets his caution, and roams about after stray mussels on the beach. In the spring hunger drives him into the ponds where food is plenty--but such food! In a week his flesh is so strong that a crow would hardly eat it. Altogether, it is small wonder that as soon as his instinct tells him the streams of the North are open and the trout running up, he is off to a land of happier memories.

In summer he forgets his hardships. His life is peaceful as a meadow brook. His home is the wilderness--on a lonely lake, it may be, shimmering under the summer sun, or kissed into a thousand smiling ripples by the south wind. Or perhaps it is a forest river, winding on by wooded hills and grassy points and lonely cedar swamps. In secret shallow bays the young broods are plashing about, learning to swim and dive and hide in safety. The plunge of the fish-hawk comes up from the pools. A noisy kingfisher rattles about from tree to stump, like a restless busy-body. The hum of insects fills the air with a drowsy murmur. Now a deer steps daintily down the point, and looks, and listens, and drinks. A great moose wades awkwardly out to plunge his head under and pull away at the lily roots. But the young brood mind not these harmless things. Sometimes indeed, as the afternoon wears away, they turn their little heads apprehensively as the alders crash and sway on the bank above; a low cluck from the mother bird sends them all off into the grass to hide. How quickly they have disappeared, leaving never a trace! But it is only a bear come down from the ridge where he has been sleeping, to find a dead fish perchance for his supper; and the little brood seem to laugh as another low cluck brings them scurrying back from their hiding places.

Once, perhaps, comes a real fright, when all their summer's practice is put to the test. An unusual noise is heard; and round the bend glides a bark canoe with sound of human voices. Away go the brood together, the river behind them foaming like the wake of a tiny steamer as the swift-moving feet lift them almost out of water. Visions of ocean, the guns, falling birds, and the hard winter distract the poor mother. She flutters wildly about the brood, now leading, now bravely facing the monster; now pushing along some weak little loiterer, now floundering near the canoe as if wounded, to attract attention from the young. But they double the point at last, and hide away under the alders. The canoe glides by and makes no effort to find them. Silence is again over the forest. The little brood come back to the shallows, with mother bird fluttering round them to count again and again lest any be missing. The kingfisher comes out of his hole in the bank. The river flows on as before, and peace returns; and over all is the mystic charm of the wilderness and the quiet of a summer day.

This is the way it all looks and seems to me, sitting over under the big hemlock, out of sight, and watching the birds through my field-glass.

Day after day I have attended such little schools unseen and unsuspected by the mother bird. Sometimes it was the a-b-c class, wee little downy fellows, learning to hide on a lily pad, and never getting a reward of merit in the shape of a young trout till they hid so well that the teacher was satisfied. Sometimes it was the baccalaureates that displayed their talents to the unbidden visitor, flashing out of sight, cutting through the water like a ray of light, striking a young trout on the bottom with the rapidity and certainty almost of the teacher. It was marvelous, the diving and swimming; and mother bird looked on and quacked her approval of the young graduates.--That is another peculiarity: the birds are dumb in winter; they find their voice only for the young.

While all this careful training is going on at home, the drake is off on the lakes somewhere with his boon companions, having a good time, and utterly neglectful of parental responsibility. Sometimes I have found clubs of five or six, gay fellows all, living by themselves at one end of a big lake where the fishing was good. All summer long they roam and gad about, free from care, and happy as summer campers, leaving mother birds meanwhile to feed and educate their offspring. Once only have I seen a drake sharing the responsibilities of his family. I watched three days to find the cause of his devotion; but he disappeared the third evening, and I never saw him again. Whether the drakes are lazy and run away, or whether they have the atrocious habit of many male birds and animals of destroying their young, and so are driven away by the females, I have not been able to find out.

These birds are very destructive on the trout streams; if a summer camper spare them, it is because of his interest in the young, and especially because of the mother bird's devotion. When the recreant drake is met with, however, he goes promptly onto the bill of fare, with other good things.

Occasionally one overtakes a brood on a rapid river. Then the poor birds are distressed indeed. At the first glimpse of the canoe they are off, churning the water into foam in their flight. Not till they are out of sight round the bend do they hear the cluck that tells them to hide. Some are slow in finding a hiding place on the strange waters. The mother bird hurries them. They are hunting in frantic haste when round the bend comes the swift-gliding canoe. With a note of alarm they are all off again, for she will not leave even the weakest alone. Again they double the bend and try to hide; again the canoe overtakes them; and so on, mile after mile, till a stream or bogan flowing into the river offers a road to escape. Then, like a flash, the little ones run in under shelter of the banks, and glide up stream noiselessly, while mother bird flutters on down the river just ahead of the canoe. Having lured it away to a safe distance, as she thinks, she takes wing and returns to the young.

Their powers of endurance are remarkable. Once, on the Restigouche, we started a brood of little ones late in the afternoon. We were moving along in a good current, looking for a camping ground, and had little thought for the birds, which could never get far enough ahead to hide securely. For five miles they kept ahead of us, rushing out at each successive stretch of water, and fairly distancing us in a straight run. When we camped they were still below us. At dusk I was sitting motionless near the river when a slight movement over near the opposite bank attracted me. There was the mother bird, stealing along up stream under the fringe of bushes. The young followed in single file. There was no splashing of water now. Shadows were not more noiseless.

Twice since then I have seen them do the same thing. I have no doubt they returned that evening all the way up to the feeding grounds where we first started them; for like the kingfishers every bird seems to have his own piece of the stream. He never fishes in his neighbor's pools, nor will he suffer any poaching in his own. On the Restigouche we found a brood every few miles; on other rivers less plentifully stocked with trout they are less numerous. On lakes there is often a brood at either end; but though I have watched them carefully, I have never seen them cross to each other's fishing grounds.

Once, up on the Big Toledi, I saw a curious bit of their education. I was paddling across the lake one day, when I saw a shellbird lead her brood into a little bay where I knew the water was shallow; and immediately they began dipping, though very awkwardly. They were evidently taking their first lessons in diving. The next afternoon I was near the same place. I had done fishing--or rather, frogging--and had pushed the canoe into some tall grass out of sight, and was sitting there just doing nothing.

A musquash came by, and rubbed his nose against the canoe, and nibbled a lily root before he noticed me. A shoal of minnows were playing among the grasses near by. A dragon-fly stood on his head against a reed--a most difficult feat, I should think. He was trying some contortion that I couldn't make out, when a deer stepped down the bank and never saw me. Doing nothing pays one under such circumstances, if only by the glimpses it gives of animal life. It is so rare to see a wild thing unconscious.

Then Kwaseekho came into the shallow bay again with her brood, and immediately they began dipping as before. I wondered how the mother made them dive, till I looked through the field-glass and saw that the little fellows occasionally brought up something to eat. But there certainly were no fish to be caught in that warm, shallow water. An idea struck me, and I pushed the canoe out of the grass, sending the brood across the lake in wild confusion. There on the black bottom were a dozen young trout, all freshly caught, and all with the air-bladder punctured by the mother bird's sharp bill. She had provided their dinner, but she brought it to a good place and made them dive to get it.

As I paddled back to camp, I thought of the way the Indians taught their boys to shoot. They hung their dinner from the trees, out of reach, and made them cut the cord that held it, with an arrow. Did the Indians originate this, I wonder, in their direct way of looking at things, almost as simple as the birds'? Or was the idea whispered to some Indian hunter long ago, as he watched Merganser teach her young to dive?

Of all the broods I have met in the wilderness, only one, I think, ever grew to recognize me and my canoe a bit, so as to fear me less than another. It was on a little lake in the heart of the woods, where we lingered long on our journey, influenced partly by the beauty of the place, and partly by the fact that two or three bears roamed about there, which I sometimes met at twilight on the lake shore. The brood were as wild as other broods; but I met them often, and they sometimes found the canoe lying motionless and harmless near them, without quite knowing how it came there. So after a few days they looked at me with curiosity and uneasiness only, unless I came too near.

There were six in the brood. Five were hardy little fellows that made the water boil behind them as they scurried across the lake. But the sixth was a weakling. He had been hurt, by a hawk perhaps, or a big trout, or a mink; or he had swallowed a bone; or maybe he was just a weak little fellow with no accounting for it. Whenever the brood were startled, he struggled bravely a little while to keep up; then he always fell behind. The mother would come back, and urge, and help him; but it was of little use. He was not strong enough; and the last glimpse I always had of them was a foamy wake disappearing round a distant point, while far in the rear was a ripple where the little fellow still paddled away, doing his best pathetically.

How frightened he was! Yet how still he sat! Whenever I took my eyes from him a moment I had to hunt again, sometimes two or three minutes, before I could see him there.

Meanwhile the brood went almost to the opposite shore before they stopped, and the mother, satisfied at last by my quietness, flew over and lit among them. She had not seen the little one. Through the glass I saw her flutter round and round them, to be quite sure they were all there. Then she missed him. I could see it all in her movements. She must have clucked, I think, for the young suddenly disappeared, and she came swimming rapidly back over the way they had come, looking, looking everywhere. Round the canoe she went at a safe distance, searching among the grass and lily pads, calling him softly to come out. But he was very near the canoe, and very much frightened; the only effect of her calls was to make him crouch closer against the grass stems, while the bright little eyes, grown large with fear, were fastened on me.

Slowly I backed the canoe away till it was out of sight around the point, though I could still see the mother bird through the bushes. She swam rapidly about where the canoe had been, calling more loudly; but the little fellow had lost confidence in her, or was too frightened, and refused to show himself. At last she discovered him, and with quacks and flutters that looked to me a bit hysteric pulled him out of his hiding place. How she fussed over him! How she hurried and helped and praised and scolded him all the way over; and fluttered on ahead, and clucked the brood out of their hiding places to meet him! Then, with all her young about her, she swept round the point into the quiet bay that was their training school.

And I, drifting slowly up the lake into the sunset over the glassy water, was thinking how human it all was. "Doth he not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?"

Br'er Rabbit is a funny fellow. No wonder that Uncle Remus makes him the hero of so many adventures! Uncle Remus had watched him, no doubt, on some moonlight night when he gathered his boon companions together for a frolic. In the heart of the woods it was, in a little opening where the moonlight came streaming in through the pines, making soft gray shadows for hide-and-seek, and where no prowling fox ever dreamed of looking.

With most of us, I fear, the acquaintance with Bunny is too limited for us to appreciate his frolicsome ways and his happy, fun-loving disposition. The tame things which we sometimes see about country yards are often stupid, like a playful kitten spoiled by too much handling; and the flying glimpse we sometimes get of a bundle of brown fur, scurrying helter-skelter through and over the huckleberry bushes, generally leaves us staring in astonishment at the swaying leaves where it disappeared, and wondering curiously what it was all about. It was only a brown rabbit that you almost stepped upon in your autumn walk through the woods.

Look under the crimson sumach yonder, there in the bit of brown grass, with the purple asters hanging over, and you will find his form, where he has been sitting all the morning and where he watched you all the way up the hill. But you need not follow; you will not find him again. He never runs straight; the swaying leaves there where he disappeared mark the beginning of his turn, whether to right or left you will never know. Now he has come around his circle and is near you again--watching you this minute, out of his bit of brown grass. As you move slowly away in the direction he took, peering here and there among the bushes, Bunny behind you sits up straight in his old form again, with his little paws held very prim, his long ears pointed after you, and his deep brown eyes shining like the waters of a hidden spring among the asters. And he chuckles to himself, and thinks how he fooled you that time, sure.

To see Br'er Rabbit at his best, that is, at his own playful comical self, one must turn hunter, and learn how to sit still, and be patient. Only you must not hunt in the usual way; not by day, for then Bunny is stowed away in his form on the sunny slope of a southern hillside, where one's eyes will never find him; not with gun and dog, for then the keen interest and quick sympathy needed to appreciate any phase of animal life gives place to the coarser excitement of the hunt; and not by going about after Bunny, for your heavy footsteps and the rustle of leaves will only send him scurrying away into safer solitudes. Find where he loves to meet with his fellows, in quiet little openings in the woods. There is no mistaking his playground when once you have found it. Go there by moonlight and, sitting still in the shadow, let your game find you, or pass by without suspicion; for this is the best way to hunt, whether one is after game or only a better knowledge of the ways of bird and beast.

The spot referred to was the only camping ground on the lake; so Simmo, my Indian guide, assured me; and he knew very well. I discovered afterward that it was the only cleared bit of land for miles around; and this the rabbits knew very well. Right in the midst of their best playground I pitched my tent, while Simmo built his lean-to near by, in another little opening. We were tired that night, after a long day's paddle in the sunshine on the river. The after-supper chat before the camp fire--generally the most delightful bit of the whole day, and prolonged as far as possible--was short and sleepy; and we left the lonely woods to the bats and owls and creeping things, and turned in for the night.

I crept slowly out; but beyond a slight rustle as my head appeared outside the tent I heard nothing, though I waited several minutes and searched about among the underbrush. But no sooner was I back in the tent and quiet than there it was again, and repeated three or four times, now here, now there, within the next ten minutes. I crept out again, with no better success than before.

This time, however, I would find out about that mysterious noise before going back. It isn't so pleasant to go to sleep until one knows what things are prowling about, especially things that make a noise like that. A new moon was shining down into the little clearing, giving hardly enough light to make out the outlines of the great evergreens. Down among the ferns things were all black and uniform. For ten minutes I stood there in the shadow of a big spruce and waited. Then the silence was broken by a sudden heavy thump in the bushes just behind me. I was startled, and wheeled on the instant; as I did so, some small animal scurried away into the underbrush.

For a moment I was puzzled. Then it flashed upon me that I was camped upon the rabbits' playground. With the thought came a strong suspicion that Bunny was fooling me.

Going back to the fire, I raked the coals together and threw on some fresh fuel. Next I fastened a large piece of birch bark on two split sticks behind the fireplace; then I sat down on an old log to wait. The rude reflector did very well as the fire burned up. Out in front the fern tops were dimly lighted to the edge of the clearing. As I watched, a dark form shot suddenly above the ferns and dropped back again. Three heavy thumps followed; then the form shot up and down once more. This time there was no mistake. In the firelight I saw plainly the dangle of Br'er Rabbit's long legs, and the flap of his big ears, and the quick flash of his dark eyes in the reflected light,--got an instantaneous photograph of him, as it were, at the top of his comical jump.

I sat there nearly an hour before the why and the how of the little joker's actions became quite clear. This is what happens in such a case. Bunny comes down from the ridge for his nightly frolic in the little clearing. While still in the ferns the big white object, standing motionless in the middle of his playground, catches his attention; and very much surprised, and very much frightened, but still very curious, he crouches down close to wait and listen. But the strange thing does not move nor see him. To get a better view he leaps up high above the ferns two or three times. Still the big thing remains quite still and harmless. "Now," thinks Bunny, "I'll frighten him, and find out what he is." Leaping high he strikes the ground sharply two or three times with his padded hind foot; then jumps up quickly again to see the effect of his scare. Once he succeeded very well, when he crept up close behind me, so close that he didn't have to spring up to see the effect. I fancy him chuckling to himself as he scurried off after my sudden start.

That was the first time that I ever heard Bunny's challenge. It impressed me at the time as one of his most curious pranks; the sound was so big and heavy for such a little fellow. Since then I have heard it frequently; and now sometimes when I stand at night in the forest and hear a sudden heavy thump in the underbrush, as if a big moose were striking the ground and shaking his antlers at me, it doesn't startle me in the least. It is only Br'er Rabbit trying to frighten me.

Simmo's wrath when he at last found the precious garments was comical to behold; when he wore them with their new polka-dot pattern, it was still more comical. Why the rabbits did it I could never quite make out. The overalls were very dirty, very much stained with everything from a clean trout to tobacco crumbs; and, as there was nothing about them for a rabbit to eat, we concluded that it was just one of Br'er Rabbit's pranks. That night Simmo, to avenge his overalls, set a deadfall supported by a piece of cord, which he had soaked in molasses and salt. Which meant that Bunny would nibble the cord for the salt that was in it, and bring the log down hard on his own back. So I had to spring it, while Simmo slept, to save the little fellow's life and learn more about him.

Up on the ridge above our tent was a third tiny clearing, where some trappers had once made their winter camp. It was there that I watched the rabbits one moonlight night from my seat on an old log, just within the shadow at the edge of the opening. The first arrival came in with a rush. There was a sudden scurry behind me, and over the log he came with a flying leap that landed him on the smooth bit of ground in the middle, where he whirled around and around with grotesque jumps, like a kitten after its tail. Only Br'er Rabbit's tail was too short for him ever to catch it; he seemed rather to be trying to get a good look at it. Then he went off helter-skelter in a headlong rush through the ferns. Before I knew what had become of him, over the log he came again in a marvelous jump, and went tearing around the clearing like a circus horse, varying his performance now by a high leap, now by two or three awkward hops on his hind legs, like a dancing bear. It was immensely entertaining.

A few minutes passed by in quiet waiting before he was back again, this time with two or three companions. I have no doubt that he had been watching me all the time, for I heard his challenge in the brush just behind my log. The fun now began to grow lively. Around and around they went, here, there, everywhere,--the woods seemed full of rabbits, they scurried around so. Every few minutes the number increased, as some new arrival came flying in and gyrated around like a brown fur pinwheel. They leaped over everything in the clearing; they leaped over each other as if playing leap-frog; they vied with each other in the high jump. Sometimes they gathered together in the middle of the open space and crept about close to the ground, in and out and roundabout, like a game of fox and geese. Then they rose on their hind legs and hopped slowly about in all the dignity of a minuet. Right in the midst of the solemn affair some mischievous fellow gave a squeak and a big jump; and away they all went hurry-skurry, for all the world like a lot of boys turned loose for recess. In a minute they were back again, quiet and sedate, and solemn as bull-frogs. Were they chasing and chastising the mischief-maker, or was it only the overflow of abundant spirits as the top of a kettle blows off when the pressure below becomes resistless?

Many of the rabbits saw me, I am sure, for they sometimes gave a high jump over my foot; and one came close up beside it, and sat up straight with his head on one side, to look me over. Perhaps it was the first comer, for he did not try his scare again. Like most wild creatures, they have very little fear of an object that remains motionless at their first approach and challenge.

At another time the rabbits were gathered together in the very midst of some quiet fun, when they leaped aside suddenly and disappeared among the ferns as if by magic. The next instant a dark shadow swept across the opening, almost into my face, and wheeled out of sight among the evergreens. It was Kookoo-skoos, the big brown owl, coursing the woods on his nightly hunt after the very rabbits that were crouched motionless beneath him as he passed. But how did they learn, all at once, of the coming of an enemy whose march is noiseless as the sweep of a shadow? And did they all hide so well that he never suspected that they were about, or did he see the ferns wave as the last one disappeared, but was afraid to come back after seeing me? Perhaps Br'er Rabbit was well repaid that time for his confidence.

They soon came back again, as I think they would not have done had it been a natural opening. Had it been one of Nature's own sunny spots, the owl would have swept back and forth across it; for he knows the rabbits' ways as well as they know his. But hawks and owls avoid a spot like this, that men have cleared. If they cross it once in search of prey, they seldom return. Wherever man camps, he leaves something of himself behind; and the fierce birds and beasts of the woods fear it, and shun it. It is only the innocent things, singing birds, and fun-loving rabbits, and harmless little wood-mice--shy, defenseless creatures all--that take possession of man's abandoned quarters, and enjoy his protection. Bunny knows this, I think; and so there is no other place in the woods that he loves so well as an old camping ground.

The play was soon over; for it is only in the early part of the evening, when Br'er Rabbit first comes out after sitting still in his form all day, that he gives himself up to fun, like a boy out of school. If one may judge, however, from the looks of Simmo's overalls, and from the number of times he woke me by scurrying around my tent, I suspect that he is never too serious and never too busy for a joke. It is a way he has of brightening the more sober times of getting his own living, and keeping a sharp lookout for cats and owls and prowling foxes.

Gradually the playground was deserted, as the rabbits slipped off one by one to hunt their supper. Now and then there was a scamper among the underbrush, and a high jump or two, with which some playful bunny enlivened his search for tender twigs; and at times one, more curious than the rest, came hopping along to sit erect a moment before the old log, and look to see if the strange animal were still there. But soon the old log was vacant too. Out in the swamp a disappointed owl sat on his lonely stub that lightning had blasted, and hooted that he was hungry. The moon looked down into the little clearing with its waving ferns and soft gray shadows, and saw nothing there to suggest that it was the rabbits' nursery.

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