6o Redruff 



the knob-joints of the wings, and what a blow 

 he could strike ! At the first onset he struck 

 the squirrel square on the end of the nose, his 

 weakest spot, and sent him reeling ; he stag- 

 gered and wriggled into a brush-pile, where 

 he had expected to carry the little grouse, and 

 there lay gasping with red drops trickling 

 down his wicked snout. The partridges left 

 him lying there, and what became of him they 

 never knew, but he troubled them no more. 



The family went on toward the water, but a 

 cow had left deep tracks in the sandy loam, 

 and into one of these fell one of the chicks and 

 peeped in dire distress when he found he could 

 not get out. 



This was a fix. Neither old one seemed to 

 know what to do, but as they trampled vainly 

 round the edge, the sandy bank caved in, and, 

 running down, formed a long slope, up which 

 the young one ran and rejoined his brothers 

 under the broad veranda of their mother's tail. 



Brownie was a bright little mother, of small 

 stature, but keen of wit and sense, and was, 

 night and day, alert to care for her darling 

 chicks. How proudly she stepped and clucked 

 through the arching woods with her dainty 

 brood behind her ; how she strained her little 

 brown tail almost to a half-circle to give them 



