et us waste no time about it. I
am anxious to get our home finished and to feel a little bit settled. I
have already planned just what has got to be done and how we will do it.
Now you go look for some nice soft, dry weed stalks and strips of soft
bark, and moss and any other soft, tough material that you can find.
Just get busy and don't stop to talk."

Of course Whitefoot did as he was told. He ran down to the ground
and began to hunt for the things Mrs. Whitefoot wanted. He was very
particular about it. He still didn't think much of her idea of making
over that old home of Melody's, but if she would do it, he meant that
she should have the very best of materials to do it with.

So back and forth from the ground to the old nest in the tree Whitefoot
hurried, and presently there was quite a pile of weed stalks and
soft grass and strips of bark in the old nest. Mrs. Whitefoot joined
Whitefoot in hunting for just the right things, but she spent more time
in arranging the material. Over that old nest she made a fine high roof.
Down through the lower side she cut a little round doorway just big
enough for them to pass through. Unless you happened to be underneath
looking up, you never would have guessed there was an entrance at all.
Inside was a snug, round room, and in this she made the softest and
most comfortable of beds. As it began to look more and more like a home,
Whitefoot himself became as excited and eager as Mrs. Whitefoot had
been from the beginning. "It certainly is going to be a fine home," said
Whitefoot.

"Didn't I tell you it would be?" retorted Mrs. Whitefoot.

CHAPTER XXX: The Whitefoots Enjoy Their New Home

No home is ever mean or poor
Where love awaits you at the door.
--Whitefoot.

"There," said Mrs. Whitefoot, as she worked a strip of white birch bark
into the roof of the new home she and Whitefoot had been building out of
the old home of Melody the Wood Thrush, "this finishes the roof. I don't
think any water will get through it even in the hardest rain."

"It is wonderful," declared Whitefoot admiringly. "Wherever did you
learn to build such a house as this?"

"From my mother," replied Mrs. Whitefoot. "I was born in just such a
home. It makes the finest kind of a home for Wood Mouse babies."

"You don't think there is danger that the wind will blow it down, do
you?" ventured Whitefoot.

"Of course I don't," retorted little Mrs. Whitefoot scornfully. "Hasn't
this old nest