knew a dog who had a star on his collar for
every badger he had killed.

The rabbits were unusually spry that after-
noon. They kept starting up all about us, and
dashing off down the draw as if they were
playing a game of some kind. But the little
buzzing things that lived in the grass were all
dead -- all but one. While we were lying there
against the warm bank, a little insect of the
palest, frailest green hopped painfully out of
the buffalo grass and tried to leap into a bunch
of bluestem. He missed it, fell back, and sat
with his head sunk between his long legs,
his antennae quivering, as if he were waiting
for something to come and finish him. Tony
made a warm nest for him in her hands; talked
to him gayly and indulgently in Bohemian.
Presently he began to sing for us -- a thin,
rusty little chirp. She held him close to her
ear and laughed, but a moment afterward
I saw there were tears in her eyes. She
told me that in her village at home there was
an old beggar woman who went about selling
herbs and roots she had dug up in the forest.
If you took her in and gave her a warm place
by the fire, she sang old songs to the children
in a cracked voice, like this. Old Hata, she

[[43]]

p042 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p043w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p044

v?