74 What Birds Have Done With Me 



vention common ways of meeting the eager in- 

 quiry of a child anxious to learn all about things 

 in his new world. 



My parents were city born and bred and knew 

 nothing of nature. Clesen Smith, our neighbor 

 on the East, told me through a great cloud of 

 tobacco smoke, typical of a hazy state of mind 

 that the sound was made by tree-toads, that doubt- 

 less made the old log their home. Grant Culver, 

 to the East, was quite positive that the Fairies 

 were using the log as a prison, for political of- 

 fenders and what I heard was an awful warning 

 being given out from time to time by the miserable 

 captive. Jerry Norton, the village liar, had three 

 possible explanations. A Woodchuck had a den 

 under the log and what I heard was the Wood- 

 chuck chucking wood: a Prairie bull-snake had 

 its den in the log and warned its children by 

 pounding its tail on the ground when it was go- 

 ing away to spend the day: a Were-wolf lived in 

 the log and the explosive sounds I heard were its 

 gloating enumerations of the number of human 

 creatures it had devoured. 



Truth is said to be at the bottom of a well, 

 but the explanation of mystery is often found 

 waiting you at the side of the road, at the end of 

 a long journey. Only after years of search did 

 I find out the true explanation of the bewitched 

 log, and witchcraft was changed into love, an even 



