inging
himself from the spit and his eyes glared and his teeth glistened.

It was neither stop nor stay my grandfather made, but out he ran into
the night of the wood. It seemed to him there wasn't a stone but was
for his stumbling, not a branch but beat his face, not a bramble but
tore his skin. And wherever it was clear the rain pelted down and the
cold March wind howled along.

Glad he was to see a light, and a minute after he was kneeling, dazed,
drenched, and bedraggled by the hearth side. The brushwood flamed, and
the brushwood crackled, and soon my grandfather began to feel a little
warm and dry and easy in his mind.

"ANDREW COFFEY! ANDREW COFFEY!"

It's hard for a man to jump when he has been through all my grandfather
had, but jump he did. And when he looked around, where should he find
himself but in the very cabin he had first met Patrick in.

"Andrew Coffey, Andrew Coffey, tell me a story."

"Is it a story you want?" said my grandfather as bold as may be, for he
was just tired of being frightened. "Well if you can tell me the rights
of this one, I'll be thankful."

And he told the tale of what had befallen him from first to last that
night. The tale was long, and may be Andrew Coffey was weary. It's
asleep he must have fallen, for when he awoke he lay on the hill-side
under the open heavens, and his horse grazed at his side.

THE BATTLE OF THE BIRDS

I will tell you a story about the wren. There was once a farmer who was
seeking a servant, and the wren met him and said: "What are you
seeking?"

"I am seeking a servant," said the farmer to the wren.

"Will you take me?" said the wren.

"You, you poor creature, what good would you do?"

"Try me," said the wren.

So he engaged him, and the first work he set him to do was threshing in
the barn. The wren threshed (what did he thresh with? Why a flail to be
sure), and he knocked off one grain. A mouse came out and she eats that.

"I'll trouble you not to do that again," said the wren.

He struck again, and he struck off two grains. Out came the mouse and
she eats them. So they arranged a contest to see who was strongest, and
the wren brings his twelve birds, and the mouse her tribe.

"You have your tribe with you," said the wren.

"As well as yourself," said the mouse, and she struck out her leg
proudly. But the wren broke it with his flail, and there was a pitched
battle on a set day.

When every creature and bird was gathering to b