THE SQUIRE EL. 217 



* me at all. He made a few desperate leaps to the foot 

 of a great birch tree, and running up the trunk some 

 eight or ten feet, stopped and turned head downwards, 

 and commenced chattering, as if inclined to hold a 

 conversation with the strange animal he saw sitting 

 there on the log. I did not move, and he seemed at 

 last to entertain some doubt whether it was an animal 

 after all that he had been so terribly frightened at 

 He came slowly and cautiously down ; stopped, as he 

 reached the ground ; sat himself up on end ; and 

 looked at me cunningly and suspiciously. He hopped 

 a few paces nearer, and took another look, then leaped 

 upon the log where I sat, within ten feet of me, look- 

 ing intently and cautiously at me with his active, 

 bright, little eyes, turning first one side, then the 

 other of his face towards me, and exhibiting almost a 

 human curiosity to study out who or what I was. At 

 length, as I was entirely moveless, he seemed to have 

 made up his mind that I was nothing after all but a 

 stump, or a thing that had grown there, and passed on 

 in his, hunt after beech-nuts, out of my sight. 



I was amused, too, with the little forest mice, not 

 much larger than the end of my thumb, that seemed 



to live in and under the log on which I sat. They 



10 



