new.

Just over the brow of the knoll was a large pine stump. Its grotesque
roots wriggled out above the yellow sand-bank like dragons, and under
their protecting claws a sulky old woodchuck had digged a den long ago.
He became more sour and ill-tempered as weeks went by, and one day
waited to quarrel with Olifant's dog instead of going in, so that Molly
Cottontail was able to take possession of the den an hour later.

This, the pine-root hole, was afterward very coolly taken by a
self-sufficient young skunk, who with less valor might have enjoyed
greater longevity, for he imagined that even man with a gun would fly
from him. Instead of keeping Molly from the den for good, therefore, his
reign, like that of a certain Hebrew king, was over in four days.

The other, the fern-hole, was in a fern thicket next the clover field.
It was small and damp, and useless except as a last retreat. It also was
the work of a woodchuck, a well-meaning, friendly neighbor, but a
hare-brained youngster whose skin in the form of a whip-lash was now
developing higher horse-power in the Olifant working team.

"Simple justice," said the old man, "for that hide was raised on stolen
feed that the team would 'a' turned into horse-power anyway."

The Cottontails were now sole owners of the holes, and did not go near
them when they could help it, lest anything like a path should be made
that might betray these last retreats to an enemy.

There was also the hollow hickory, which, though nearly fallen, was
still green, and had the great advantage of being open at both ends.
This had long been the residence of one Lotor, a solitary old coon whose
ostensible calling was frog-hunting, and who, like the monks of old, was
supposed to abstain from all flesh food. But it was shrewdly suspected
that he needed but a chance to indulge in a diet of rabbit. When at last
one dark night he was killed while raiding Olifant's hen-house, Molly,
so far from feeling a pang of regret, took possession of his cosy nest
with a sense of unbounded relief.

IV

Bright August sunlight was flooding the Swamp in the morning. Everything
seemed soaking in the warm radiance. A little brown swamp-sparrow was
teetering on a long rush in the pond. Beneath him there were open spaces
of dirty water that brought down a few scraps of the blue sky, and
worked it and the yellow duckweed into an exquisite mosaic, with a
little wrong-side picture of the bird in the middle. On t