e ones standing! And after
supper what shall they have for beds? What but the good old chests
again! For many and many a day and night they are used, and the mother
is, over and over again, thankful that she brought them.

As the summer days go by, the children pick berries in the woods and
meadows, and Fritz is feeling himself a great boy when his father
expects him to take care of the old horse, blind of one eye, bought to
drag the loads of wood to market.

Louise is learning to love the grand old trees where the birds and
squirrels live. She sits for hours with her work on some mossy cushion
under the great waving boughs, and she is so silent and gentle that
the squirrels learn to come very near her, turning their heads every
minute to see if she is watching, and almost laughing at her with
their sharp, bright eyes, while they are cramming their cheeks full of
nuts--not to eat now, you know, but to carry home to the storehouses
in some comfortable hollow trees, to be saved for winter use. When the
snow comes, you see, they will not be able to find any nuts.

One day Louise watched them until she suddenly thought, "Why don't we,
too, save nuts for the winter?" and the next day she brought a
basket and the younger children, instead of her knitting-work. They
frightened away the squirrels, to be sure, but they carried home a
fine large basketful of nuts.

Oh, how much might be seen in those woods on a summer day!--birds and
flowers, and such beautiful moss! I have seen it myself, so soft and
thick, better than the softest cushion to sit on, and then so lovely
to look at, with its long, bright feathers of green.

Sometimes Louise has seen the quails going out for a walk; the mother
with her seven babies all tripping primly along behind her, the wee,
brown birds; and all running, helter-skelter, in a minute, if they
hear a noise among the bushes, and hiding, each one, his head under a
broad leaf, thinking, poor little foolish things, that no one can see
them.

Christian whistles to the quails a long, low call; they will look this
way and that and listen, and at last really run towards him without
fear.

Before winter comes the log house is made more comfortable; beds and
chairs are bought, and a great fire burns in the fireplace. But do the
best they can the rain will beat in between the logs, and after the
first snowstorm one night, a white pointed drift is found on the
breakfast-table. They laugh at it, and cal