as unable to quite control.
With unerring instinct,--though this was the first snake he had ever
encountered,--the mouse strove to reach its enemy's back and sever the
bone with the fine chisels of his teeth. But it was just this that the
snake was watchful to prevent. Three times in his convulsive leaps the
mouse succeeded in touching the snake's body,--but with his feet only,
never once with those destructive little teeth. The snake held him
inexorably, with a steady, elastic pressure which yielded just so far,
and never quite far enough. And in a minute or two the mouse's brave
struggles grew more feeble.

All this, however,--the lashing and the wriggling and the
jumping,--had not gone on without much disturbance to the grass-tops.
Timothy head and clover-bloom, oxeye and feathery plume-grass, they
had bowed and swayed and shivered till the commotion, very conspicuous
to one looking down upon the tranquil, flowery sea of green, caught
the attention of the marsh-hawk, which at that moment chanced to be
perching on a high fence stake. The lean-headed, fierce-eyed,
trim-feathered bird shot from his perch, and sailed on long wings over
the grass to see what was happening. As the swift shadow hovered over
the grass-tops, the snake looked up. Well he understood the
significance of that sudden shade. Jerking back his fangs with
difficulty from the mouse's neck, he started to glide off under the
thickest matting of the roots. But lightning quick though he was, he
was not quite quick enough. Just as his narrow head darted under the
roots, the hawk, with wings held straight up, and talons reaching
down, dropped upon him, and clutched the middle of his back in a grip
of steel. The next moment he was jerked into the air, writhing and
coiling, and striking in vain frenzy at his captor's mail of hard
feathers. The hawk flew off with him over the sea of green to the top
of the fence stake, there to devour him at leisure. The mouse, sore
wounded but not past recovery, dragged himself back to the hollow
under the stone. And over the stone the grass-tops, once more still,
hummed with flies, and breathed warm perfumes in the distilling
heat.

When the Moon Is over the Corn

In the mystical transparency of the moonlight the leafy world seemed
all afloat. The solid ground, the trees, the rail fences, the serried
ranks of silver-washed corn seemed to have lost all substantial
foundation. Everything lay swimming, as it were, up