THE RACCOON 



flavor, and in the cool dusk the katy- 

 dids call and answer one to another out 

 of their leafy tents, and the delicate 

 green crickets that Yankee folks call 

 August pipers play their monotonous 

 tune. Above the katydid's strident cry 

 and the piper's incessant notes, a wild 

 tremulous whinny shivers through the 

 gloom at intervals, now from a distant 

 field or wood, now from the near or- 

 chard. One listener will tell you that 

 it is only a little screech owl's voice, an- 

 other that it is the raccoon's rallying 

 cry to a raid on the cornfield. There 

 is endless disputation concerning it and 

 apparently no certainty, but the rac- 

 coon is wilder than the owl, and it is 

 pleasanter to believe that it is his voice 

 that you hear. 



The corn is in the milk ; the feast is 

 ready. The father and mother and well 

 grown children, born and reared in the 

 cavern of a ledge or hollow tree of a 

 swamp, are hungry for sweets remem- 

 bered or yet untasted, and they are 

 gathering to it, stealing out of the thick 

 darkness of the woods and along the 

 brookside in single file, never stopping to 

 133 



