78 Fairy Tales |

after a little brown squirrel which went in
the most whimsical way in the world, as if he
were showing off for some one to admire, and
every now and then shot up to the top of a
tree and chattered. ‘“ Whirr-r-r-r!” he said
at last, ‘‘there’s your place!”

True enough, there was a clearing and a
hut, and the people who lived there were
very kind to Hans, and wanted to keep him
the next day. When they found he would
not stay they put all the food they could
spare in his pocket, and the woman kissed
him between his blue eyes, and the man told
him the way he should go to get to the edge
of the wood. He had plenty of food for the
birds, and they were all round him again;
the sun shone and the mists were soft, and
the trees sparkled with their fringes of hoar-
frost, and he went on his way whistling.

He walked all day, and before the sun set,
while it yet glowed crimson behind the dark
stems of the trees, just as he was beginning
to grow weary, he heard the cry of some hurt
animal. Hans stopped to listen, then pushed