m
goin' to get yer father a job, helpin' me, down somewheres near
Greensville--because I couldn't sleep nights knowin' ye was runnin'
round anywheres near that hell-hole yonder!"

The Iron Edge of Winter

The glory of the leaves was gone; the glory of the snow was not yet
come; and the world, smitten with bitter frost, was grey like steel.
The ice was black and clear and vitreous on the forest pools. The
clods on the ploughed field, the broken hillocks in the pasture, the
ruts of the winding backwoods road, were hard as iron and rang under
the travelling hoof. The silent, naked woods, moved only by the bleak
wind drawing through them from the north, seemed as if life had
forgotten them.

Suddenly there came a light thud, thud, thud, with a pattering of
brittle leaves; and a leisurely rabbit hopped by, apparently on no
special errand. At the first of the sounds, a small, ruddy head with
bulging, big, bright eyes had appeared at the mouth of a hole under
the roots of an ancient maple. The bright eyes noted the rabbit at
once, and peered about anxiously to see if any enemy were following.
There was no danger in sight.

Within two or three feet of the hole under the maple the rabbit
stopped, sat up as if begging, waved its great ears to and fro, and
glanced around inquiringly with its protruding, foolish eyes. As it
sat up, it felt beneath its whitey fluff of a tail something hard
which was not a stone, and promptly dropped down again on all fours to
investigate. Poking its nose among the leaves and scratching with its
fore-paws, it uncovered a pile of beech-nuts, at which it began to
sniff. The next instant, with a shrill, chattering torrent of
invective, a red squirrel whisked out from the hole under the maple,
and made as if to fly in the face of the big, good-natured trespasser.
Startled and abashed by this noisy assault, the rabbit went bounding
away over the dead leaves and disappeared among the desolate grey
arches.

The silence was effectually dispelled. Shrieking and scolding
hysterically, flicking his long tail in spasmodic jerks, and calling
the dead solitudes to witness that the imbecile intruder had uncovered
one of his treasure-heaps, the angry squirrel ran up and down the
trunk for at least two minutes. Then, his feelings somewhat relieved
by this violent outburst, he set himself to gathering the scattered
nuts and bestowing them in new and safer hiding-places.

In this task he had little reg