ited, into the burrow.

"The Little Villager sat just where he was for perhaps half a minute,
barking with indignation. Then he followed the impertinent visitors.
As he entered he heard a confused sound of shrill, angry chattering,
explosive hissing, and savage snapping of beaks. Being able to see
quite comfortably in the gloom, he distinguished his companion, the
lady villager who was at that time occupying the burrow with him, doing
her best to make the visitors understand that they were not welcome.
Her language might have seemed clear enough. She made little rushes at
them with open mouth and gnashing teeth, and her tones were just as
unpleasant as she knew how to make them. But the guests confronted her
with claws and beaks so ready and so formidable that she did not like
to come to close quarters.

"Nor, indeed, when the Little Villager himself arrived was the
situation very much altered. One of the owls turned and faced him,
whereupon he, too, lost his resolution and confined himself to threats.
The two owls, for their part, seemed to consider it wise to stand on
the defensive rather than to force a battle to a finish with their
unwilling hosts. For some minutes, therefore, the war of threats and
bad language went on, without fur or feathers actually flying. Then at
last the Little Villager, who was by nature an easy-going, unresentful
soul, chanced to glance aside from his adversary; and it flashed into
his mind that, after all, there was some room to spare in the burrow.
Anyhow, he was tired of the argument. He turned away indifferently and
began to nibble at some tough grass stems which he had brought down in
case of a rainy day. Seeing him thus yield the point at issue, his
mate was not going to fight it out alone. She, too, turned her back
with ostentatious indifference upon her rude guests, and went out and
sat on the top of the hillock to let her feelings calm down. The pair
of owls, well satisfied to have forced themselves upon the Little
Villager's hospitality, huddled together in their own corner, and
resumed the nap which had been so unpleasantly interrupted in their
previous residence."

"What was it that interrupted?" broke in the Child, glad that it was
not he that could be accused of it, _that_ time. "What was it that
drove them out of their own burrow in such a hurry?"

"It was a big rattlesnake," answered Uncle Andy, quite politely,
remembering that he himself had recently been gu