and so self-possessed!--a thought struck me.
"Mephitis," I gasped, and instantly put several feet more between us. So
attractive and playful were they, however, that notwithstanding I feared
it might be hard to convince their mamma, should she appear, of my
amiable intentions, I could not resist another look. Calm as a summer
morning walked off one of the mephitis babies, holding his pretty tail
straight up like a kitten's, while the other four went on with their
frolic in the grass. At this moment I heard a rustle in the dead leaves,
and having no desire to meet their grown-up relatives, I left in so
great haste that I took the wrong path, and finally lost myself for a
time in a tangle of wild raspberry bushes, whose long arms reached out
on every side to scratch the face and hands or catch the dress of the
unwary passer-by.

The other of the two ways spoken of was a road, soft-carpeted with dead
leaves. To reach the tanager's nest we took that, and came, a little
further on, to a big log half covered with growing fungi and laid
squarely across the passage. This was the fungus log, another landmark
for the wanderer unfamiliar with these winding ways. On this, if I were
alone, I always rested awhile to get completely into the woods spirit,
for this is the heart of the woods, with nothing to be seen on any side
but trees. Cheerful, pleasant woods they are, of sunny beech, birch,
maple, and butternut, with branches high above our heads, and a far
outlook under the trees in every direction. There is no gloom such as
evergreens make; no barricade of dark impenetrable foliage, behind which
might lurk anything one chose to imagine, from a grizzly bear to an
equally unwelcome tramp.

In this lovely spot come together four roads and a path, and to the
pilgrim from cities they seem like paths into paradise. That on the
right leads by a roundabout way to the "corner," where one may see the
sunset. The next, straight in front, is the passage to the nest of the
winter wren. The far left invites one to a wild tangle of fallen trees
and undergrowth, where veeries sing, and enchanting but maddening
warblers lure the bird-lover on, to scramble over logs, wade into
swamps, push through chaotic masses of branches, and, while using both
hands to make her way, incidentally offer herself a victim to the
thirsty inhabitants whose stronghold it is. All this in a vain search
for some atom of a bird that doubtless sits through the whole, calml