Page 32 - A Hero of Ticonderoga

posy beds the awkward care of unaccustomed hands. He often stopped his
employment to listen and intently scan the border of the woods. The

shadows of the trees were stretching far across the clearing when an owl
hooted solemnly in the nearest woods on the bank of the creek, and,

presently, another answered farther away.

"Do hear the owls hootin’, and it’s clear as a bell," said Ruth at the door,

looking up to the cloudless sky. "It can’t be it’s a-going to storm."

"I shouldn’t wonder if it did," said Seth with a mirthless laugh. "Where was
that nighest hoot?"

As he spoke the solemn hollow notes were repeated, and some crows began
to wheel and caw above the spot, marking it plainly enough to the eye and

ear, and he set forth in the direction at a quick pace.

"Why don’t Nathan come home?" little Martha asked. "I hain’t seen him all

day. I wish he’d come. He’ll get ketched in the storm."

"Oh, don’t worry, deary," said her mother after she had watched her
husband disappear in the thickening shadow of the woods. "We might as
well eat, for there’s no telling when father’ll be back." They were not half

through the meal before he came, and, as he took his seat at the table, he
said with a deep sigh of relief: "I’m afeard our York friends won’t enjoy

their lodgin’s overmuch. The owls are round pretty thick to-night."

"Well, I guess they’ve ben talking to you," said Ruth, as her face lighted

with a comprehension of his meaning.

"Can owls talk?" Martha asked, agape with wonder.

"Well, the old knowing ones. Owls are turrible knowing creatur’s," her

father said.

The twilight possessing the woods had scarcely invaded the clearing when
the surveyor and his party came to the house, bringing in blankets,