WHITE-FOOT 37 



ably quizzed from time to time about those chest- 

 nuts, until I began to wonder if I had got up in 

 my sleep and devoured the four quarts, shells and 

 all. 



Then one day, while we were putting things ship- 

 shape in the vegetable cellar, what did we come upon 

 but a nice little pile of chestnuts hidden away in a 

 dark corner ; then we discovered another pile, laid up 

 carefully, neatly, in a secret spot, where no human 

 eye except the human house-cleaning eye, that 

 misses nothing would ever have seen them, and 

 where no big human hand would ever have put 

 them. 



I was allowed to go then and there scot-free; and 

 a trap was set for the wood mouse. It was White- 

 Foot, we knew. But we never caught her. And I 

 am glad of it, for after we took away what chest- 

 nuts we could find, she evidently felt it necessary to 

 make a new hoard, and began with a handful of old 

 hickory-nuts, shagbarks, that had been left in the 

 vegetable cellar beside the box of chestnuts. 



Now, however, she felt the insecurity of the inner 

 cellar, or else she had found a fine big bin out in 

 the furnace cellaf, for out there by the furnace she 

 took those nuts and tucked them compactly away 

 into the toe of one of my tall hunting-boots. 



There were double doors and a brick partition 

 wall between the two cellars. No matter. Here were 

 the nuts she had not yet stored ; and out yonder 



