Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-17

|O7
brown forest floor and on the scattered underbrush
allured him. Presently standing out in conspicuous
isolation great crimson toadstool caught his eye.
He wanted the beautiful thing intensely, to play
with. But he afraid Leaning his face against
the old fence, he gazed through desirously. But the
the squirrel would come back and play with him,
he would not be afraid. He was on the point of
giving up the beautiful crimson toadstood and
ing back home, when he little gray bird hop
ping amid the lower limbs of spruce in among the
shadows "Tsic- a-dee-d ee" whisted the little gray
bird bthely and reassurngly At once the he shad,
squeezed boldly through the fence and started in
for the glowing toadstool.
to seize it, sharp Tip, tzip!' and rustling of
stiff feathers startled him. Looking up, he
bright eyed brown bird running hither and thither
before him, trailing wing the ground as if
unable to fly. 1t was such pretty bird! And it
seemed SO tame! The Kid felt sure he could catch
it. Grabbing up the crimson toadstool, and holding
after the brown bird. The bird, a willy old hen
partridge, bent on leading the intruder away from
her hidden brood, kept futtering laboriousy on
Just beyond his reach till she came to dense patch
of underbrush. She just about to dive into this
thcket when she leaped into the air, instead, with
a frightened squawk, and whrred up into the
branches of lofty birch by.
Bitterly disappointed, the Kid gazed up after her,
still clutching the bright toadstool to his breast
Then, by instinct rather than by reason he dropped
his eyes to the thicket, and stared in to what
had frightened away the pretty brown bird.
At first he could see nothing. But to his
sensitive little nerves came feeling that
something there. Gradually his eyes,
accustomlng themselves to the gloom, be-
gan to disentangle substance and shadow.
Then suddenly he detected the form of
& agray, crouching animal He saw its tufted
its big round face with mouth half
open grnningly. Its great, round, pale,
yellow green eyes staring straight at
him.
In his fright the Kid dropped his toad
stool and stared back at the gray animal
His first impulse was to turn and run; but
somehow, he afraid to do that-afraid
to turn his back on the pale eyed, crouch
ing shape. AS he gazed, trembling, he
that the animal looked like huge gray
cat At this thought he felt trihe re-
assured. Cats were kind, and nice to play
with big cat wouldn't hurt him, he
felt quite of that But when, after
minute or two of moveless glazing, the
big cat never taking its round eyes from
his face, began to creep straight toward
him, stealthlly, without sound, then his
terror all came back. In the extremity of
his fear he burst out crying, not very loud,
! but softly and pitifully as if he hardly
knew what he was doing. His little hands
hanging light down at his sides, his
head bent slightly forward, he stood help
lessly staring at this strange, terrible cat
creeping toward him through the thicket.
Sonny, meanwhile, had grown uneasy
the moment the Kid climbed through the
bars into the pasture. The Kid had never
gone into the pasture before Sonny got
up, turned round, and lay down in such
position that he could see just what the
child was doing. He knew the little one
belonged to Joe Barnes; and he could
not let anything belonging to Joe Barnes
get lost away. When the Kid reached the
edge of the woods and stood looking through the
fence, then Sonny reused himself, and started up