s!

"Our old dog comes to meet me
With something of a smile--
I wheel right over on my head
And wave my legs a while."

OCTOBER

_X_

_OCTOBER_

[Illustration: _Scorpio_]

It was a queer October place--
No house, you'd say, at all!
A wide brown wood with leaves for a floor,
And timbers straight and tall.
The little creatures that lived in there--
Fairies and furry things--
Scurried away when the children came,
With bashful scamperings.

[Illustration: _It was a queer October place_]

As the travelers entered the woods, they heard funny little clicking
sounds everywhere.

"It's the sound a watch makes when you shut it," Ann said.

"Maybe they have watches here instead of clocks," remarked Amos.

"Not at all," said a voice behind them. The voice came from a fat Brownie,
who was sitting on a stone with his legs dangling. "They have clocks
everywhere in Zodiac Town," the Brownie resumed, "even out here in the
suburbs. That noise is the Chestnut Chaps unbuckling their belts and
throwing off their overcoats."

The children looked as if they did not know whether he was serious or
joking.

"It's the honest truth," said the Brownie. "Listen.

"Every little wing of wind,
Every tilt of breeze,
Stirs a sound of frolicking
In the tallest trees:
Scuffling, shuffling, shouldering,
Nudges, nips, and taps,
Watch and wait a moment, child--
It's the Chestnut Chaps!

"Elbow crowding elbow hard
In their breeches brown,
If one comrade takes a leap,
Ten come bouncing down;
When the crackle of a leaf
Shakes one lad to laughter,
Till he tumbles from his perch,
Twenty tumble after.

"Frisky with the silver frost,
Wild with windy weather,
Half the autumn-tide they spend
Giggling all together.
Rough of coat but sweet of heart,
Jolly, glad--perhaps
Never finer fellows lived
Than the Chestnut Chaps!"

As he finished, there came a series of clicks overhead, and seven Chestnut
Chaps landed suddenly at the travelers' very feet. As they fell, two gray
squirrels darted out to the end of a limb, their tails jerking with
excitement; but the Brownie waved them back.

"In this wood," he said, "squirrels are not allowed to feed on chestnuts."
He turned to the squirrels, who were scowling at him from a high branch.
"A