fter all, had not budged, nor did he now; he only closed his eyes a
tiny little bit harder, till the mother said:

'K-reet!' (Come, children) and instantly like a fairy story, every hole
gave up its little baby-partridge, and the wee fellow on the chip, the
biggest of them all really, opened his big-little eyes and ran to the
shelter of her broad tail, with a sweet little 'peep peep' which an
enemy could not have heard three feet away, but which his mother could
not have missed thrice as far, and all the other thimblefuls of down
joined in, and no doubt thought themselves dreadfully noisy, and were
proportionately happy.

The sun was hot now. There was an open space to cross on the road to the
water, and, after a careful lookout for enemies, the mother gathered the
little things under the shadow of her spread fantail and kept off all
danger of sunstroke until they reached the brier thicket by the stream.

Here a cottontail rabbit leaped out and gave them a great scare. But the
flag of truce he carried behind was enough. He was an old friend; and
among other things the little ones learned that day that Bunny always
sails under a flag of truce, and lives up to it too.

And then came the drink, the purest of living water, though silly men
had called it Mud Creek.

At first the little fellows didn't know how to drink, but they copied
their mother, and soon learned to drink like her and give thanks after
every sip. There they stood in a row along the edge, twelve little brown
and golden balls on twenty-four little pink-toed, in-turned feet, with
twelve sweet little golden heads gravely bowing, drinking and giving
thanks like their mother.

Then she led them by short stages, keeping the cover, to the far side of
the beaver-meadow, where was a great grassy dome. The mother had made a
note of this dome some time before. It takes a number of such domes to
raise a brood of partridges. For this was an ant's nest. The old one
stepped on top, looked about a moment, then gave half a dozen vigorous
rakes with her daws, The friable ant-hill was broken open, and the
earthen galleries scattered in ruins down the slope. The ants swarmed
out and quarreled with each other for lack of a better plan. Some ran
around the hill with vast energy and little purpose, while a few of the
more sensible began to carry away fat white eggs. But the old partridge,
coming to the little ones, picked up one of these juicy-looking bags and
clucked and d