s to eat off the same plates without washing, till we
forget what we ate off them last."

"I object to such a plan as that!" cried Theodora. "I would rather wash
them all, myself."

Tom and Willis washed the dishes that night, however; and the girls sat
back on their bench and smiled and pinched each other, to see the
performance.

By the time the dishes question was disposed of and everything had been
tidied up and the fire once more attended to, the darkness of an October
night had fallen. Everything outside the circle of our firelight was
veiled in obscurity. There was no moon and it was a little cloudy, at
least, the stars did not seem to show much. Very soon as we sat on our
benches in front of the girls' cabin, we began to hear various wild
notes from the great somber forest about us.

"What is that kind of plaintive cry that I hear now and then near the
stream?" Theodora asked. "It's like the word _seet_! I have heard it
several times since dark, once or twice back of the cabins, and now out
there by the two pines."

"That? Oh, that is the night note of a little mouse-catching owl," said
Addison. "Some term it the saw-whet owl, I believe. There are numbers of
these little fellows about at night, in these woods. They catch lots of
woods mice and such small birds as chickadees."

"But hark! what was that strange, lonesome, hollow cry?" said Ellen, as
an outcry at a distance, came wafted on the still air.

"Oh, that's a raccoon," said Tom. "He's trying to attract the notice of
some other 'coon. You'll hear him for fifteen or twenty minutes now,
every minute or so."

"They came into our corn-field last year," said Willis. "We heard them
every night, calling to each other. I set a trap, but never could get
any of them into it."

Willis went on to relate several raccoon stories which his older
brothers had told him. "Hullo!" he suddenly interrupted himself. "Hear
that? away off up there by the foot of the mountain?"

"I know what that was," said Tom. "That was a screamer."

"What is a 'screamer?'" Theodora asked.

"Oh, it's a kind of wild-cat," replied Thomas. "You tell her, Addison."

"If it is a wild-cat, it is the same as the 'lucivee,' or loup-cervier,"
replied Addison. "But I have never heard one cry out at night; so I
cannot say for certain."

"Oh, I have," said Willis. "They have little tassels on the top of their
ears and are about as big as a fair-sized dog. But they never come near
a camp; t