A Watcher in The Woods

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Sharp Dallas Lore. A Watcher in The Woods

BIRDS' WINTER BEDS

SOME SNUG WINTER BEDS

"MUS'RATTIN'"

FEATHERED NEIGHBORS

FROM RIVER-OOZE TO TREE-TOP

RABBIT ROADS

SECOND CROPS

IN THE OCTOBER MOON

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It was a cold, desolate January day. Scarcely a sprig of green showed in the wide landscape, except where the pines stood in a long blur against the gray sky. There was not a sign that anything living remained in the snow-buried fields, nor in the empty woods, shivering and looking all the more uncovered and cold under their mantle of snow, until a solitary crow flapped heavily over toward the pines in search of an early bed for the night.

The bird reminded me that I, too, should be turning toward the pines; for the dull gray afternoon was thickening into night, and my bed lay beyond the woods, a long tramp through the snow.

.....

There were numerous dark galleries branching off from this main hallway, piercing out into the ground. Into one of these I put my finger, by way of discovery, thinking I might find the nest. I did find the nest – and more. The instant my finger entered the hole a sharp twinge shot up my arm, and I snatched away my hand with a large meadow-mouse fastened to the end of my finger, and clinging desperately to her, lo! two baby mice, little bigger than thimbles.

In this mild and even temperature, four feet below the frozen surface of the garden, with never a care as to weather and provisions, dwelt this single family of meadow-mice. What a home it was! A mansion, indeed, with rooms innumerable, and a main hall girdling a very mountain of juicy, sugary beets. This family could not complain of hard times. Besides the beets, the mice had harvested for themselves a number of cribs of clover-roots. These cribs, or bins, were in the shape of little pockets in the walls of the great gallery. Each contained a cupful of the thick, meaty tap-roots of clover, cut into lengths of about half an inch. If the beets should fail (!), or cloy upon them, they had the roots to fall back on.

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