e had not long to
wait. In a hole high up in a hickory a little gray head popped
out--then a squirrel came out cautiously--first its head, then half
of its body, and each time it moved looking and listening, with its
cunning, bright eyes, taking in everything. Then it frisked out with
a flirt of its tail, and sat on a limb nearby. It was followed by
another and another. Archie B. watched them for a half hour, a
satisfied smile playing around his lips. He was studying squirrel. He
saw them run into the hole again and bring out each a nut and sit on
a nearby limb and eat it.

"That settles that," he said to himself. "I thought they kept their
nuts in the same hole."

There was the sound of voices behind him and the squirrels vanished.
Archie B. stood up and saw an old man and some children gathering
nuts.

"It's the Bishop an' the little mill-mites. I'll bet they've brought
their dinner."

This was the one thing Archie B. needed to make his day in the woods
complete.

"Hello," he shouted, coming up to them.

"Why, it's Archie B.," said Shiloh, delighted.

"Why, it is," said her grandfather. "What you doin', Archie B.?"

"Studyin' squirrels right now. What you all doin'?"

"I've tuck the kids out of the mill an' I'm givin' 'em their fus' day
in the woods. Shiloh, there, has been mighty sick and is weak yet, so
we're goin' slow. Mighty glad to run upon you, Archie B. Can't you
sho' Shiloh the squirrels? She's never seed one yet, have you, pet?"

"No," said Shiloh thoughtfully. "Is they like them little jorees that
say _Wake-up, pet! Wake-up, pet?_ Oh, do sho' me the squirrel!
Mattox, ain't this jes' fine, bein' out of the mill?"

Archie B.'s keen glance took in the well-filled lunch basket. At once
he became brilliantly entertaining. In a few minutes he had Shiloh
enraptured at the wood-lore he told her,--even Bull Run and Seven
Days, Atlanta and Appomattox were listening in amazement, so
interesting becomes nature's story when it finds a reader.

And so all the morning Archie B. went with them, and never had they
seen so much and enjoyed a day as they had this one.

And the lunch--how good it tasted! It was a new life to them.
Shiloh's color came in the healthful exercise, and even Bull Run
began to look out keenly from his dull eyes.

After lunch Shiloh went to sleep on a soft carpet of Bermuda grass
with the old man's coat for a blanket, while the other children waded
in the branch, and gathered nuts t