34 WINTER 



^ him, and where no crow will dare come to tear hi 

 ' house to pieces. 



There he will swing in the winter gales with the 

 snow swirling around and beneath him ; there he 

 will dream through the rain and the slanting sleet 

 when his high sapling stairway is coated with ice^ 

 and impossible for him to climb ; there he will live, 

 and whenever I thump with the tongs at his outer 

 gate, up there in the little round doorway will ap- 

 pear his head his eyes, I should say, for he looks 

 all eyes up there, so large, so black, so innocent, so 

 inquiring are they, so near to rolling off down the! 

 tip of his nose with sheer surprise. 



I shall have many a cheering glimpse of White- ( 

 Foot, many a comforting thought of him, out there, ; 

 his thatch snow-covered, his thick-walled nest in theL 

 ; -3 slender hickory riding the winter seas that sweep 



the hilltop, as safe as the ships anchored yonder inC 



/(the landlocked harbor; and he will be much more*'. 



> comforting to me out there than here in the house^ 



with me; for, strangely enough, while White-Foot^ 



never seems to join the common mice in the 

 ... , never a winter goes by without one or more of his * 



\ kind coming into the house for the cold weather. 

 ' / ^ This would be very pleasant if they could keep 

 . * out of the pop-corn and the nuts and the apples and 

 r**j~y the linen-drawers. But only recently one got into 

 "'? the linen in the china-closet, and chewed together the, 

 * loveliest damask nest that any being ever slept in. 





