"And does it hurt?" inquired Uncle Andy politely.

But, young as he was, the Child had learned to ignore sarcasm--especially
Uncle Andy's, which he seldom understood.

"I was just wondering," he replied, shaking his head thoughtfully, "what
the young ones of all the wild creatures would do in the winter to keep
warm. Bill says they all go to sleep. But I don't see how _that_ keeps
them warm, Uncle Andy."

"Oh, _Bill_!" remarked Uncle Andy, in a tone which stripped all Bill's
statements of the last shreds of authority. "But, as a matter of fact,
there _aren't_ many youngsters around in the woods in winter--not enough
for you to be looking so solemn about. They're mostly born early enough
in spring and summer to be pretty well grown up by the time winter comes
on them."

"Gee!" murmured the Child enviously. "I wish I could get grown up as
quick as that."

Uncle Andy sniffed.

"There are lots of people besides you," said he, "that don't know when
they're well off. But," he continued, seating himself on Bill's chopping
log and meditatively cleaning out his pipe bowl with a bit of chip,
"there _are_ some youngsters who have a fashion of getting themselves
born right in the worst of the cold weather--and that not here in
Silverwater neither, but way up north, where weather is weather, let me
tell you--where it gets so cold that, if you were foolish enough to cry,