io6 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



all the way from behind the hen-yard, and letting 

 it fly, I knocked the little creature into a harmless 

 bunch of fur. 



The family went over to the bean supper and 

 left me all alone on the farm. But I was calm 

 now, with a strange, cold calmness born of ex- 

 tremity. Nothing more could happen to me ; I 

 was beyond further harm. So I took up the bodies 

 of the two creatures, and carried them, together 

 with some of my late clothing, over beyond the 

 ridge for burial. Then I returned by way of my 

 neighbor's, where I borrowed two sticks of blast- 

 ing-powder and a big cannon fire-cracker. I had 

 watched my neighbor use these explosives on the 

 stumps in a new piece of meadow. The next 

 morning, with an axe, a crowbar, shovel, gun, 

 blasting-powder, and the cannon-cracker, I started 

 for the stump in the wood-lot. I wished the 

 cannon-cracker had been a keg of powder. I 

 could tamp a keg of powder so snugly into the 

 hole of those skunks ! 



It was a beautiful summer morning, tender 

 with the half-light of breaking dawn, and fresh 

 with dew. Leaving my kit at the mouth of the 

 skunks' den, I sat down on the stump to wait a 



