from the house, up the hill, across the highway 

 toward a neighboring farmstead, with its nose in the 

 air and its eye and ear alert, so to speak. 



A winter neighbor of mine in whom I am inter- 

 ested, and who perhaps lends me his support after his 

 kind, is a little red owl, whose retreat is in the heart 

 of an old apple-tree just over the fence. Where he 

 keeps himself in spring and summer I do not know, 

 but late every fall, and at intervals all winter, his 

 hiding-place is discovered by the jays and nut-hatches, 

 and proclaimed from the tree-tops for the space of 

 half an hour or so, with all the powers of voice they 

 can command. Four times during one winter they 

 called me out to behold this little ogre feigning sleep 

 in his den, sometimes in one apple-tree, sometimes in 

 another. Whenever I heard their cries, I knew my 

 neighbor was being berated. The birds would take 

 turns at looking in upon him and uttering their alarm- 

 notes. Every jay within hearing would come to the 

 spot and at once approach the hole in the trunk or 

 limb, and with a kind of breathless eagerness and ex- 

 citement take a peep at the owl, and then join the 

 outcry. When I approached they would hastily take 

 a final look and then withdraw and regard my move- 

 ments intently. After accustoming my eye to the 

 faint light of the cavity for a few moments, I could 

 usually make out the owl at the bottom feigning 

 sleep. Feigning, I say, because this is what he really 

 did, as I first discovered one day when I cut into his 

 retreat with the axe. The loud blows and the falling 



