Christmas in the Woods 
spirit of the wood, you are made the guest of the 
open, silent, secret out-of-doors. 
I went down with the ‘possum. He had traveled 
home leisurely and without fear, as his tracks plainly 
showed. He was full of persimmons. A good happy 
world this, where such fare could be had for the 
picking! What need to hurry home, except one were 
in danger of falling asleep by the way? SoI thought, 
too, as I followed his winding path; and if I was 
tracking him to his den, it was only to wake him for 
amoment with the compliments of the season. But it 
was not even a momentary disturbance; for when I 
finally found him in his hollow gum, he was sound 
asleep, and only half realized that some one was pok- 
ing him gently in the ribs and wishing him a merry 
Christmas. 
The ’possum had led me to the centre of the 
empty, hollow swamp, where the great-boled gums 
lifted their branches like a timbered, unshingled roof 
between me and the wide sky. Far away through the 
spaces of the rafters I saw a pair of wheeling buz- 
zards, and under them, in lesser circles, a broad- 
winged hawk. Here, at the feet of the tall, clean 
trees, looking up through the leafless limbs, I had 
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