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LITTLE FOLKS THAT GNAW 



YESTERDAY (Washington's Birthday) there 

 was a light snowfall of three inches, cover- 

 ing the old snow which was packed to a 

 crust, and the bare patches exposed by the recent 

 February thaw. To-day I went out to the swamp 

 woods to see how my rabbit was faring, knowing 

 that I could track him easily in this telltale new 

 powder. I have kept a desultory eye on him for 

 two months, since I discovered his winter lair under 

 an old pine stump on the edge of the swamp, and 

 his playground close by, beneath a tent of swamp 

 shrubbery bent over by the weight of snow to form 

 a kind of arched wicker roof. Cottontail rabbits 

 have been scarce this winter, far less numerous than 

 for several years, and this chap, living within two 

 hundred feet of the road, interested me more than 

 he ordinarily would have done. 



When I reached his playground to-day the new 

 snow was so covered with his tracks that it looked 

 like an airplane photograph of a white No Man's 



