“Don’t think of it, son,” said Deacon Winslow instantly, and in a tone that would not be denied.  “When the time comes I’ll hitch my horse to the big sleigh; we’ll wrap the child up as snug as a bug in a rug; and be over to your house in a jiffy.  What if he does get a bit drowsy; let him take a nap.  I’m sure he’ll be safe in the loving arms of grandma.”

At his mention of that last word the old lady hugged the child, and bent her wrinkled kindly face close to his cheeks; but Hugh believed it was to hide the rush of sacred emotions that swept over her.

Then they talked.

By degrees Hugh got his host started on the subject that was nearest his heart, and which had to do with the wonderful habits of all the small, wild animals of which the deacon had made a life-long study.

“It’s a wonderfully fascinating subject, Hugh,” the old blacksmith philanthropist went on to say, as he started in.  “I took it up just as a fancy, but as the years went by it became a habit that grew on me more and more.  Yes, I have had an amazing lot of pleasure out of my observations.  As the good wife here will tell you, I’ve spent hours on hours at night, hidden in the woods, with a light fixed on some nest of a muskrat or gopher or fox, just to learn what the cunning little varmint did betimes; when of rights I should have been in my bed getting rested for another hard day’s labor at my forge.”

“His holidays have always been taken up in the same way,” interrupted Mrs. Winslow, smiling lovingly at her husband, whose heart she evidently could read as though it were a printed book.  “At first I begrudged him the time, but later on I knew it was taking his thoughts away from subjects that we were trying to keep out of our minds, and I never tried to hold him back.”

“It was my study of the habits of these small animals and birds that gave me what little faculty I may possess for prophesying the weather ahead,” continued the old man.  “They seldom, if ever, go wrong.  If I’ve hit it wrong now and then, the fault was mine, not theirs.  I had failed to properly interpret their actions, that was all.”

So he went on to tell Hugh many deeply interesting experiments he had undertaken along those lines.  He also had a fund of wonderful anecdotes, many of them quite humorous, connected with his little friends of fur and feather.

The more Hugh heard him tell the greater grew his interest.  He resolved that at some time in the not distant future, when an opportunity came along, he, too, would begin to pay more attention to the multitude of interesting things that could be discovered in almost any woods, if only the observer kept his eyes about him, and did nothing to alarm the timid inmates of various burrows and hollow trees.

So an hour passed, all too quickly.

Once Hugh took out his little nickel watch, as if under the impression that it must be getting near time for him to think of saying good-night; though he hated to leave such a jolly fireside, and the fine couple.