The HE grass was dry and withered, and the ust be taken out of the woods a in the barn to be fed. All the bright-colored leaves became dull browhe cold fall rains began.
There was no more playing uhe trees. But Pa was in the house when it rained, and he began again to play the fiddle after supper.
Then the rains stopped. The weather grew colder. In the early ms everything sparkled with frost. The days were growing short and a little fire burned all day in the cookstove to keep the house warm. Winter was not far away.
The attid the cellar were full of good things once more, and Laura and Mary had started to make patchwork quilts. Everything was beginning to be snug and cosy again.
One night when he came in from doing the chores Pa said that after supper he would go to his deer-lid watch for a deer. There had been no fresh meat itle house since spring, but now the fawns were grown up, and Pa would go hunting again.
Pa had made a deer-lick, in an open pla the woods, with trees near by in which he could sit to watch it. A deer-lick lace where the deer came to get salt. When they found a salty pla the ground they came there to lick it, and that was called a deer-lick. Pa had made one by sprinkling salt over the ground.
After supper Pa took his gun a into the woods, and Laura and Mary went to sleep without any stories or music.
As soon as they woke in the m they ran to the window, but there was no deer hanging irees. Pa had never befo to get a deer and e home without one. Laura and Mary did not know what to think.
All day Pa was busy, banking the little house and the barn with dead leaves and straw, held down by stoo keep out the cold. The weather grew colder all day, and that night there was once more a fire on the hearth and the windows were shut tight and ked for the winter.
After supper Pa took Laura on his knee, while Mary sat close in her little chair. And Pa said:
"Now Ill tell you why you had no fresh meat to eat today.
"When I went out to the deer-lick, I climbed up into a big oak tree. I found a pla a branch where I was fortable and could watch the deer-lick. I was near enough to shoot any animal that came to it, and my gun was loaded and ready on my knee.
"There I sat and waited for the moon to rise and light the clearing. I was a little tired from chopping wood all day yesterday, and I must have fallen asleep, for I found myself opening my eyes.」 "The big, round moon was just rising. I could see it between the bare branches of the trees, low in the sky. And right against it I saw a deer standing. His head and he was listening. His great, brang horns stood out above his head.
He was dark against the moon.
"It erfect shot. But he was so beautiful, he looked s and free and wild, that I couldnt kill him. I sat there and looked at him, until he bounded away into the dark woods.
"Then I remembered that, Ma and my little girls were waiting for me t home some good fresh venison. I made up my mind that ime I would shoot.
"After awhile a big bear came lumbering out into the open. He was so fat at from feasting on berries and roots and grubs all summer that he was nearly as large as two bears. His head swayed from side to side as he went on all fours across the clear spa the moonlight, until he came to a rotten log. He smelled it, and listehen he pawed it apart and sniffed among the broken pieces, eating up the fat white grubs.
"Theood