he fields of Jersey or Long-Island. Here they come again by scores.
Now let us see how good a shot you are. Two cocks on the topmost branch of
that old maple, full forty yards to the trunk. No, no! don't get any
nearer, for they see you. Well done! Hear him thump on the leaves; and
here comes the other, fluttering round and round like a shuttlecock. Ten
to one that you shot him through the head. There! I told you so! His wings
are not hurt, but a shot has cut away his bill. Here, Dancer, don't bite
him so, but bring him here! Chick, chick, churr! Mister Red-squirrel,
we'll 'give you a few,' as Jared used to say. On that knot in the green
hemlock, he sits with his tail spread out over his head, for all the world
like a young miss in a high-backed, old-fashined easy-chair. Well, we wont
harm him, for the sake of the associations his comical appearance awakens.

Dancer is barking down in the ravine. There he comes! as if he were crazy;
he is on the track of a hare! Do you see that pair of slender ears pricked
up behind the roots of that fallen tree? Let me try my skill at a long
shot. I've hit them, that's poz! No, I haven't either; for the
nimble-footed thing is scudding away round the hill as safe as if I had
not wasted my loading on her.

This sunken cask down here where the water wells up through the white
sand, used to be the father of the cool spring water for the uses of the
Homestead, and was conveyed the whole distance in 'pump-logs.' You can see
the end of one, with an iron band sunk into it, sticking out of the earth.
This spring, however, has been long exchanged for one on higher ground,
and the wooden logs for lead pipe, half as expensive, and not half so
healthy. Just pop over that chip-munk, whose head is peeping out of the
ground at the foot of the maple sapling. Too cruel! Well done! you are
growing compassionate all at once. Look out for your head! I declare, you
escaped narrowly! That dead limb would have dispersed all your theology,
had it struck your head. Well, Dancer, what are you staring at? Do you
think the old tree dropped one of its limbs on purpose? Ah, ha! I see!
Peter, do you see that tuft of dark moss in the crotch of that largest
maple: well, I am going to shoot at it for sport, so here goes! I
_thought_ it was a black squirrel; how he leaps from the top boughs.
Hurrah! here we go over logs and through bushes; the squirrel still ahead
of us, springing from tree top to tree top. How he rattles