next, or the next ball. The third went true, striking with a "chug" and
packing the crack. But the black, hating eyes were still watching me a
foot lower down.

It is not all peace and good-will in the Christmas woods. But there is
more of peace and good-will than of any other spirit. The weasels are
few. More friendly and timid eyes were watching me than bold and
murderous. It was foolish to want to kill--even the weasel. For one's
woods are what one makes them; and so I let the man with the gun, who
chanced along, think that I had turned boy again, and was snowballing
the woodpile, just for the fun of trying to hit the end of the biggest
stick.

I was glad he had come. As he strode off with his stained bag, I felt
kindlier toward the weasel. There were worse in the woods than
he,--worse, because all of their killing was pastime. The weasel must
kill to live, and if he gloated over the kill, why, what fault of his?
But the other weasel, the one with the blood-stained bag, he killed for
the love of killing. I was glad he was gone.

The crows were winging over toward their great roost in the pines when I
turned toward the town. They, too, had had good picking along the creek
flats and ditches of the meadows. Their powerful wing-beats and constant
play told of full crops and no fear for the night, already softly gray
across the white silent fields. The air was crisper; the snow began to
crackle under foot; the twigs creaked and rattled as I brushed along; a
brown beech leaf wavered down and skated with a thin scratch over the
crust; and pure as the snow-wrapped crystal world, and sweet as the
soft gray twilight, came the call of a quail.