"Don't be skeered o' him, kid, not one little mite," said Henderson, gently. "He ain't agoin' to trouble this earth no more. An' I'm goin' to get yer father a job, helpin' me, down somewheres near Greensville--because I couldn't sleep nights knowin' ye was runnin' round anywheres near that hell-hole yonder!"
The glory of the leaves was gone; the glory of the snow was not yet come; and the world, smitten with bitter frost, was grey like steel. The ice was black and clear and vitreous on the forest pools. The clods on the ploughed field, the broken hillocks in the pasture, the ruts of the winding backwoods road, were hard as iron and rang under the travelling hoof. The silent, naked woods, moved only by the bleak wind drawing through them from the north, seemed as if life had forgotten them.
Suddenly there came a light thud, thud, thud, with a pattering of brittle leaves; and a leisurely rabbit hopped by, apparently on no special errand. At the first of the sounds, a small, ruddy head with bulging, big, bright eyes had appeared at the mouth of a hole under the roots of an ancient maple. The bright eyes noted the rabbit at once, and peered about anxiously to see if any enemy were following. There was no danger in sight.
Within two or three feet of the hole under the maple the rabbit stopped, sat up as if begging, waved its great ears to and fro, and glanced around inquiringly with its protruding, foolish eyes. As it sat up, it felt beneath its whitey fluff of a tail something hard which was not a stone, and promptly dropped down again on all fours to investigate. Poking its nose among the leaves and scratching with its fore-paws, it uncovered a pile of beech-nuts, at which it began to sniff. The next instant, with a shrill, chattering torrent of invective, a red squirrel whisked out from the hole under the maple, and made as if to fly in the face of the big, good-natured trespasser. Startled and abashed by this noisy assault, the rabbit went bounding away over the dead leaves and disappeared among the desolate grey arches.
The silence was effectually dispelled. Shrieking and scolding hysterically, flicking his long tail in spasmodic jerks, and calling the dead solitudes to witness that the imbecile intruder had uncovered one of his treasure-heaps, the angry squirrel ran up and down the trunk for at least two minutes. Then, his feelings somewhat relieved by this violent outburst, he set himself to gathering the scattered nuts and bestowing them in new and safer hiding-places.