cing up and down on the stump in
vociferous excitement. When the Kid was within three feet of him, he
gave a wild "K-r-r-r-r!" of derision, and sprang to another stump.
With eyes dancing and eager little hands outstretched, the Kid
followed--again and again, and yet again--till he was led to the very
edge of the wood. Then the mocking imp in red fur whisked up an
ancient hemlock, and hid himself, in silence, in a high crotch, tired
of the game.

At the edge of the woods the Kid stopped, peering in among the shadows
with mingled curiosity and awe. The bright patches of sunlight on the
brown forest floor and on the scattered underbrush allured him.
Presently, standing out in conspicuous isolation, a great crimson
toadstool caught his eye. He wanted the beautiful thing intensely, to
play with. But he was afraid. Leaning his face against the old fence,
he gazed through desirously. But the silence made him more and more
afraid. If only the squirrel would come back and play with him, he
would not be afraid. He was on the point of giving up the beautiful
crimson toadstool and turning back home, when he saw a little gray
bird hopping amid the lower limbs of a spruce in among the shadows.
"Tsic-a-dee-dee!" whistled the little gray bird, blithely and
reassuringly. At once the shadows and the stillness lost their
terrors. The Kid squeezed boldly through the fence and started in for
the glowing toadstool.

Just as he reached the coloured thing and stooped to seize it, a sharp
"Tzip, tzip!" and a rustling of stiff feathers startled him. Looking
up, he saw a bright-eyed brown bird running hither and thither before
him, trailing one wing on the ground as if unable to fly. It was such
a pretty bird! And it seemed so tame! The Kid felt sure he could catch
it. Grabbing up the crimson toadstool, and holding it clutched to his
bosom with one hand, he ran eagerly after the brown bird. The bird, a
wily old hen partridge, bent on leading the intruder away from her
hidden brood, kept fluttering laboriously on just beyond his reach,
till she came to a dense patch of underbrush. She was just about to
dive into this thicket, when she leaped into the air, instead, with a
frightened squawk, and whirred up into the branches of a lofty birch
near by.

Bitterly disappointed, the Kid gazed up after her, still clutching the
bright toadstool to his breast. Then, by instinct rather than by
reason, he dropped his eyes to the thicket, and stared in to s