there for a week; and last time I got six. If I don't find mice,
there's that chicken coop of old Jenkins. Only"--He stops, with his
foot up, and listens a minute--"only he locks the coop and leaves the
dog loose ever since I took the big rooster. Anyway I'll take a look
round there. Sometimes Deacon Jones's hens get to roosting in the next
orchard. If I can find them up an apple tree, I'll bring a couple down
with a good trick I know. On the way--Hi, there!"

In the midst of his planning he gives a grasshopper-jump aside, and
brings down both paws hard on a bit of green moss that quivered as he
passed. He spreads his paws apart carefully; thrusts his nose down
between them; drags a young wood-mouse from under the moss; eats him;
licks his chops twice, and goes on planning as if nothing had
happened.

"On the way back, I'll swing round by the Fales place, and take a
sniff under the wall by the old hickory, to see if those sleepy skunks
are still there for the winter. I'll have that whole family before
spring, if I'm hungry and can't find anything else. They come out on
sunny days; all you have to do is just hide behind the hickory and
watch."

So off he goes on his well-planned hunt; and if you follow his track
to-morrow in the snow, you will see how he has gone from one hunting
ground directly to the next. You will find the depression where he lay
in a clump of tall dead grass and watched a while for the rabbit;
reckon the number of mice he caught in the meadow; see his sly tracks
about the chicken coop, and in the orchard; and pause a moment at the
spot where he cast a knowing look behind the hickory by the wall,--all
just as he planned it on his way to the brook.