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The wind blew harder and colder as the hours went by, and about midnight a fine, icy snow came ticking down on the dead leaves and hissing through the brush heap. It might seem a poor night for hunting, but that old fox from Springfield was out. He came pointing up the wind in the shelter of the Swamp and chanced in the lee of the brush-pile, where he scented the sleeping Cottontails.
The nest rested among the top limbs of a little brush-pile and was just two feet above the ground. Some young shoots had grown up through the brush and their leaves partly covered the nest from view. It had an extreme breadth of ten inches and was five inches high. The inner cup was two and one-half inches deep, and measured the same across the top.
I made a sort of pillow out of my gun, cartridge box, haversack and canteen, and stretched myself out on the brush-pile, tired to death, and rather discouraged over the events of the day. The main body of Buell's men, "the army of the Ohio," soon after dark began ascending the bluff at a point a little above the landing, and forming in line in the darkness a short distance beyond.
The hollow hickory was gone in fact at this very moment its trunk, lying in the wood-yard, was harboring the mink they feared. So the Cottontails hopped to the south side of the pond and, choosing a brush-pile, they crept under and snuggled down for the night, facing the wind but with their noses in different directions so as to go out different ways in case of alarm.
"But that's certainly the only thing to be done," Jack pointed out. "Perhaps two of us, with the rifles, could hold them " A flicker of light broke out below which was not a lantern, and approached the dimly disclosed brush-pile. Quick as a flash Jack's rifle went to his shoulder, and there was a reverberating crash.
One sang it with indignation; another with remonstrance; still another with resignation; others yet with ethereal sadness or wild elusive pain. Once more the house-wren aloud, "per-se-cu-test per-se-cu-test per-se-cu-test per-se-cu-test!" And as I peeped into the brush-pile, again the brown thrush, building within, said, "thou thou thou!"
Therefore I said to my two little helpers: "Here in this open space in the garden we will begin our brush-pile, and we will bring to it all the refuse that we wish to burn. You see that we can make an immense heap, for the place is so far away from any buildings that, when the wind goes down, we can set the pile on fire in safety, and the ashes will do the garden good."
Make bed. To-night, I stay; Mr. Boyne here stay; Mr. Edwards stay. Fix three rooms. Good fire." "All 'ite," the chink would have ducked out then, Jim Edwards after him, but I stopped the proceedings with, "Hold on a minute while we're all together tell us about that visitor Mr. Gilbert had last night." I was throwing a rock in the brush-pile in the chance of scaring out a rabbit.
The wind blew harder and colder as the hours went by, and about midnight a fine icy snow came ticking down on the dead leaves and hissing through the brush-heap. It might seem a poor night for hunting, but that old fox from Springfield was out. He came pointing up the wind in the shelter of the Swamp and chanced in the lee of the brush-pile, where he scented the sleeping Cotton-tails.
The children stampeded for the house, Winnie crying: "Hurry up, mamma, for right after dinner papa will set the great brush-pile on fire, and we're going to dance round it like Indians. You must come out, too." It amused and interested me to see upon the children's faces such an eager expectancy as they hurried through our midday meal.
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