. After all, the
prairie-dogs were the main thing and he had them.

He congratulated himself that he had decided to leave on the heads when
skinning them. The recipe so enthused him that he decided to prepare
them before starting in with his washing.

Obviously the first thing to do was to thaw the onions, so he put them
in the oven, after which he went to a box in the corner and selected a
few biscuit. Crumbs were crumbs, as he viewed it, and biscuit crumbs
were quite as good as bread crumbs for his purpose.

There were certain marks on these biscuit that were made unmistakably by
the teeth of mice and chipmunks, but these traces he removed
painstakingly. As he reduced the biscuit to crumbs with a hammer, he
recalled that he had been awakened several times by the sound of these
pestiferous animals frisking in the box in the corner. He did not allow
his mind to dwell upon this, however, lest it prejudice him when it came
to the eating of the "forcemeat."

Onions, he found, were not improved by freezing. Those he removed from
the oven were distinctly pulpy, but since they smelled like onion and
tasted like it, he mushed them in with the biscuit crumbs, and seasoned.

Then he crammed the prairie-dogs with the mixture and looked for a
thread among his sewing articles. Since he could find nothing but black
linen, Wallie threaded a darning needle and did a fancy "feather" stitch
down the middle of each of them.

This accomplished, he stood off and viewed his handiwork with eminent
pride and satisfaction, though it occurred to him that owing to his
generous use of "forcemeat" they had a bloated appearance, as if they
had died of strychnine poisoning.

The heads, too, were decidedly rat-like, and as the long, sharp teeth of
the pair of them grinned up at Wallie he covered them hastily and set
about his washing.

He had come to begrudge every stick of firewood, and it took an
incredible amount to heat wash-water. A man could very well fill his
time if he did nothing but collect wood and carry water.

As he set his tub and washboard on a box and rubbed vigorously on his
undergarments, he smiled to himself and wondered what his friends of The
Colonial would say if they could see him at the moment. He did not so
much mind washing, it was easier than digging post holes, but it was not
much of a way to spend Christmas and he was desperately lonely. He
wished someone would come along to talk to.

He was so far from the ro