163 



as she turns to fate him drops the nut of 

 contention safe within her two dainty paws. 

 At once she falls to ravenous gnawing. He 

 looks on a minute, then rubs his head ca- 

 ressingly against her, and hops away for 

 new treasure-trove. They will take home 

 scarce a dozen nuts the day ; but surely 

 they risk nothing by such delicious idling. 

 What if the children do carry away the 

 shagbarks, the butternuts, the hazelnuts, 

 chestnuts, black walnuts even, here are 

 acorns pattering down, a russet hail, hardly 

 less sweet and toothsome to these shy wood- 

 rangers. 



What various charm lies in this fruit of 

 the oak ! See these shallow, fine-grained 

 cups filled with long, glossy, brown-black 

 ovals, and growing in clusters of twos, of 

 threes, of fives, so thick along the tensile 

 white-oak branchlets! The post-oak's cup 

 will scarce go on your little finger, and clus- 

 ters daintily at root of tufted leaves. " Chin- 

 capin acorns," the children call them. You 

 can bed near a dozen of them in one of the 

 over-cups' big, deep-fringed shells. Spanish- 

 oak acorns are dark, delicate, graceful as 

 the tree itself. Red oak, turkey-oak, yield 

 rough, commonplace mast. You might gath- 

 er all by the bushel in any ten yards of 



