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In some families the games of the children mainly consist in the construction of dwellings, of this kind or that castle, or ship, or cave, or nest in the treetop according to the material attainable. It is an outcome of the aboriginal necessity for shelter, this instinct of burrowing: Welbeck Abbey is the development of a weem or Picts' house.

As the flock wheeled about, he joined them and flew along with them for some distance, but made no attempt to strike that I could see. Presently he left them and perched upon the top of a near maple. The birds did not seem to fear him now, but swept past the treetop where he sat as if to challenge him to a race, and then went their way.

The life instinct was fully awakened in him now, as the dread from which he had run became more distant. Had he heard that close whine and distant howl before he fairly reached the open he would have sought a treetop for refuge. Now it was too late. He must run ahead blindly across the treeless space for such harborage as might come.

When he had gone some distance farther, his attention was attracted by a noisy bird in a tree, and he shot it with his blow-gun. By and by he took aim at a large monkey, which mocked him from another treetop, and that, too, fell dead at his feet. Then he heard his dog barking furiously in the distant bushes, and hastening to it he found it biting a wild pig.

But they were not there; and I took to watching instead a family of mink that lived in a den under a root, and a big owl that always slept in the same hemlock. Then, one day when a flock of partridges led me out of the wild berry bushes into a cool green island of the burned lands, I ran plump upon the deer and her fawns lying all together under a fallen treetop, dozing away the heat of the day.

The air was warm, with a slight breeze as we went along, and that, mixed with the plentiful flora about us and the songs of the treetop dwellers, rendered the whole feeling of the walk peaceful and happy, though its end was not to be such.

Noticing that Bostwick Badger, who then owned the farm now occupied by Collington, had felled an oak near the place, and that he had drawn out the timber, Collington obtained permission to cut the top for wood. Collington's axe and the prophet's diggers began operations about the same time on the following morning. Out from the treetop came Collington and asked what they were doing.

It was about three o'clock one afternoon when Ab, whose turn it chanced to be, was working valiantly in the pit, while Oak, all eyes, was perched aloft. Suddenly there came from the treetop a yell which was no boyish expression of exuberance of spirits.

The fourth, however, a perfect cast of over one hundred feet, which fell just beyond the farthest treetop, was rewarded; the water broke in a great eddy as Old Muskie took the bait. Lee struck with all his might, and pulled with all the force he dared to use, although he was pulling almost straight back toward the treetops.

They pass by Storborg, by Breidablik, and the sound follows them all the way from the hills here and there; 'tis no military music like in the towns, nay, but voices a proclamation: Spring has come. Then suddenly the first chirp of a bird is heard from a treetop, waking others, and a calling and answering on every side; more than a song, it is a hymn of praise.