The Story of a Graysquirrel 



tail found a place where a broken limb 

 had let the weather in, so the tree was 

 rotted. Digging out the soft wood left 

 an ample cave, which he gnawed and gar- 

 nished into a warm and weather-proof 

 home. 



The bright, sharp days of autumn 

 passed. The leaves were on the ground 

 throughout the woods in noisy dryness 

 and lavish superabundance. The sum- 

 mer birds had gone, and the Chipmunk, 

 oversensitive to the crispness of the 

 mornings, had bowed sedately on Novem- 

 ber 1, had said his last "good-by," and 

 had gone to sleep. Thus one more voice 

 was hushed, the feeling of the woods 

 was "Hush, be still!" — was all-expectant 

 of some new event, that the tentacles 

 of high-strung wood-folk sensed and 

 appraised as sinister. Backward they 

 shrank, to hide away and wait. 



[37] 



