on damp nights. He always
stopped, if passing near on a wet night, and sniffed and enjoyed that
Skunk smell. The fact that it ultimately turned out to be a leakage of
sewer gas could never rob him of the pleasure he originally found in
it.

[Illustration: "Gazing spellbound in that window"]

Yan had no good excuse for these weaknesses, and he blushed for shame
when his elder brother talked "common sense" to him about his follies.
He only knew that such things fascinated him.

But the crowning glory was a taxidermist's shop kept on Main Street by
a man named Sander. Yan spent, all told, many weeks gazing spellbound,
with his nose flat white against that window. It contained some Fox
and Cat heads grinning ferociously, and about fifty birds beautifully
displayed. Nature might have got some valuable hints in that window
on showing plumage to the very best advantage. Each bird seemed more
wonderful than the last.

There were perhaps fifty of them on view, and of these, twelve had
labels, as they had formed part of an exhibit at the Annual County
Fair. These labels were precious truths to him, and the birds:

Osprey Partridge or Ruffed Grouse
Kingfisher Bittern
Bluejay Highholder
Rosebreasted Grosbeak Sawwhet Owl
Woodthrush Oriole
Scarlet Tanager * * * * * * *

were, with their names, deeply impressed on his memory and added to
his woodlore, though not altogether without a mixture of error. For
the alleged Woodthrush was not a Woodthrush at all, but turned out
to be a Hermit Thrush. The last bird of the list was a long-tailed,
brownish bird with white breast. The label was placed so that Yan
could not read it from outside, and one of his daily occupations was
to see if the label had been turned so that he could read it. But it
never was, so he never learned the bird's name.

After passing this for a year or more, he formed a desperate plan. It
was nothing less than to _go inside_. It took him some months to
screw up courage, for he was shy and timid, but oh! he was so hungry
for it. Most likely if he had gone in openly and asked leave, he
would have been allowed to see everything; but he dared not. His home
training was all of the crushing kind. He picked on the most curious
of the small birds in the window--a Sawwhet Owl then grit his teeth
and walked in. How frightfully the cowbell on the door did clang! Then
there succeeded a stil