sted with
food."

"Now, wouldn't it be a remarkable sight to see a pack mule eating off
his own back!" observed Hippy. "There are several animals that can turn
their heads all the way around, I believe, but not the human animal."

"We had better start as soon as possible," broke in Tom. "Hurry up,
girls, and get ready, while the servants fix the lunch."

In half an hour eight young people, well muffled and mittened, started
off toward the open country. It was a clear, cold day and the
snow-covered fields and meadows sparkled in the sunshine.

"If I were a gypsy by birth, as well as by inclination," declared Tom,
as they trudged gayly along, "I should take to the road in the early
spring, and never see a roof again until cold weather."

"But being a member of a respectable family and about to enter college,
you have to sleep in a bed under cover?" added David.

"It's partly that," said Tom, "and partly the cold weather that is
responsible for my good behavior two thirds of the year. If I lived in a
warm climate all the year around, every respectable notion I had would
melt away in a week and I'd take to the open forever."

"I have never been in the woods in the winter time," said Anne. "Are
they very beautiful?"

"One of the finest sights in the world," cried Tom enthusiastically, his
wholesome face glowing from his exercise.

Just then they climbed an old stone wall and entered a forest known as
"Upton Wood," which covered an area of ten miles or more in length and
several miles across.

"It is beautiful," said Anne as she gazed up and down the wooded aisles
carpeted in white. "It is like a great cathedral. I could almost kneel
and pray at one of these snow covered stumps. They are like altars."

"The fault I find with the woods in winter," observed Grace, "is that
there is nothing to do in them, no birds and beasts to make things
lively, no flowers to pick, no brooks to wade in. Just an everlasting
stillness."

"I admit there's not much social life," replied Tom. "The inhabitants
either go to sleep or fly south, most of them. But don't forget the
rabbits and squirrels and----"

"And an occasional bear," interrupted Reddy. "They have been seen in
these parts."

"Worse than bears," said Hippy. "Wolves!"

"Goodness!" ejaculated Tom. "You are doing pretty well. I didn't know
this country was so wild. But that's going some."

"Oh, well, as to that," said David, "nobody has ever really seen
anything wors