ed when he was a little boy. The neighbor boys would collect in
the grove on a quiet summer afternoon, dressed as Indians, and in heavy
seriousness would plan a desperate attack on the little white house with
its green trimmings. What happy times they used to have! But he wasn't a
boy any more, he had grown up; still he felt an expectant eagerness as
he entered the cool shade of the trees.

He followed a path, indistinct now in the rank growth of gooseberry
bushes, until he reached his destination. A tree, broken off a couple of
feet from the ground, had left a high stump with some ragged splinters,
serving as the back of a natural chair.

The boy sat for a while, leaning back with lowered eyelashes. The dim
spaces of the grove brought old memories. As he brooded there, relaxed,
the sunlight coming in broken fragments through the oak leaves softened
his face into almost that of a child.

Suddenly he straightened in desperate rebellion. Why did things have
to happen so? He didn't want to grow older--he would rather be a boy.
If he were, his father and mother would not expect him to stay on the
farm. With his reflections came the picture of his mother, her dark
eyes shining unnaturally out of the rigid paleness of her face. Then
the black dress with its long folds--it was horrible. The boy's thoughts
blurred into a confusion of sharp emotions.

As he lay back again, with lowered eyelids, he was vaguely conscious
of the life about him. Robins hopped from branch to branch, singing
and chirping. A blue-jay, in a cracked crescendo, was attacking the
established order of things among birds. A bee droned idly past.
Occasionally all sounds ceased, and silence, deep and impenetrable,
seemed to close in. After a moment, the confused murmur of the woods
began again.

In the underbrush near him, the boy became aware of fluttering noise. At
first he could see nothing; then he saw a snake--a blue racer--writhing
along the ground, while above it, making queer little noises of
distress, hovered a brown wood-thrush. He stiffened. His flesh always
crawled at the sight of a snake! Yet, leaning forward, he watched
intently. The thrush, its body a blur of brown feathers, rose and
fell in continuous attack. Then he saw the reason. A few yards from
the tree-stump lay a nest, hidden in a clump of gooseberry bushes. Above
the rim showed a circle of hungry gaping beaks. The snake was crawling
steadily toward the nest.

It was almost there.