Part 14 (2/2)

”You don't call Mrs. Lycurgus really civilized?” chuckled Neale. ”And the Billets and Bob Buckham are the nearest neighbors for some miles to his eagles.h.i.+p, in all probability.”

”I suppose it is lonely up here,” admitted Ruth.

”This is a hilly country. There are plenty of wild spots back on the high ground, within a very few miles of this spot, where eagles might nest.”

”An eagle's eyrie!” said Agnes, musingly. ”And maybe eaglets in it.”

”Like Mrs. Severn wears on her hat,” said Dot, suddenly breaking in.

”What! Eaglets on her hat?” cried Agnes.

”Eaglets to trim hats with?” chuckled Neale. ”That is a new style, for fair.”

”Oh, dear me,” said Ruth, with a sigh. ”The child means aigrets. Though I am sorry if Mrs. Severn is cruel enough to follow such a fas.h.i.+on.

That's a different kind of bird, honey.”

”Anyway, there will not be young eagles at this time of year, I guess,”

Neale added.

”How would we ever climb up to an eyrie?” Tess asked. ”They are in very inaccessible places.”

”As inac--accessible,” asked Dot, stumbling over the big word, ”as Mrs.

MacCall's highest preserve shelf?”

”Quite,” laughed Ruth.

The road through which they now drove was really ”woodsy.” The leaves were changing from green to gold, for the sap was receding into the boles and roots of the trees. The leaves seemed to be putting on their bravest colors as though to flout Jack Frost.

Squirrels darted away, chattering and scolding, as the party advanced.

These little fellows seemed to suspect that the woods were to be raided and some of the nuts, which they considered their own lawful plunder, taken away.

The Corner House girls, with their boy friend, did indeed find a goodly store of nuts. They camped in a pretty glade, where there was a spring, and tethered the horses where they could crop some sweet clover. And Neale built a real Gypsy fire, being careful that it should do no damage; and three stout stakes were set up over the blaze, a pot hung from their apex, and the tea made.

And the chestnuts! how they rained down when Neale climbed up the trees and swung himself out upon the branches, shaking them vigorously. The glossy brown nuts came out of their p.r.i.c.kly nests in a hurry and were scattered widely on the leaf-carpeted ground.

Sometimes they came down in the burrs--maybe only ”peeping” out; and getting them wholly out of the burrs was not so pleasant an occupation.

”Why is it,” complained Dot sucking her fingers, stung by the p.r.i.c.kly burrs, ”that they put such thistles on these chestnuts? It's worse than a rosebush--or a pincus.h.i.+on. Couldn't the nuts grow just as good without such awfully sharp jackets on 'em?”

”Oh, Dot,” said Tess, to whom the smallest Corner House girl addressed this speech. ”I suspect the burrs are made p.r.i.c.kly for a very good reason. You see, the chestnuts are not really ripe until the burrs are broken open by the frost. Then the squirrels can get at them easily.”

”Well, I see _that_,” agreed Dot.

”But don't you see, if the little squirrels--the baby ones--could get at the chestnuts before they were ripe, they would all get sick, and have the stomach-ache--most likely be like children, boys 'specially, who eat green apples? You know how sick Sammy Pinkney was that time he got into our yard and stole the green apples.”

”Oh, I see,” Dot acknowledged. ”I s'pose you're right, Tess. But the burrs are dreadful. Seems to me they could have found something to put 'round a chestnut besides just old p.r.i.c.kles.”

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