THE KILLING OF MARMION 



not utterly still. At such times I was in danger 

 of getting sentimental, but Griselle would come 

 like a vestal and fill the whole woods with the 

 incense of fried ham, and Charlie and I, like two 

 devotees, would walk up to her altar and perform 

 our duties with carnivorous disregard of all senti 

 ments. So does Nature, when she has her way, 

 preserve and equalize her antagonisms and con 

 vert even fried ham into ambrosia. 



I think we grew quite like Brahmins under 

 our mango trees. The entire population of the 

 woods, having come to the conclusion that we 

 were either too effeminate or too orthodox to kill 

 anything, took advantage of our helplessness. 

 The squirrels came in at the window in the morn 

 ing. The woodchucks sat on their haunches on 

 our wire grass. The rabbits made burrows under 

 our hearthstone. We could hear them scolding 

 their broods at night and bumping their heads 

 against the flooring. The wood-turtles crawled 

 in over our sill, and the young ones dropped out 

 of Charlie s pockets at night when he hung his 

 trousers over a chair. As for the birds, they 

 reminded me of the gamin in Frankfort Street. 

 They gathered in front of our door in the morn 

 ings and waited to be fed, and there was never a 

 night that a bat or two did not manage to worm 

 himself into our confidence when we were trying 

 to sleep. It was very amusing to see the com 

 placent contempt with which Lilah, the yellow 

 dog, and Gabe Hotchkiss regarded this extraor 

 dinary tolerance. But I think there was a quiet 



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