“It’s not as if those sly, shy watchers were all in front of you, you know.  The suspicious eyes will be all around you.  Perhaps it may be a tiny wood-mouse peering from under a root two or three steps behind you.  You have been perfectly still, say, for ten minutes, and the mouse is just beginning to think that you may be something quite harmless.  She rubs her whiskers, and is just about to come out when, as likely as not, you move your fingers a little, behind your back”—­here the Child blushed guiltily, and thrust both his grimy little fists well to the front—­“feeling quite safe because you don’t see the movement yourself.

“Well, the mouse sees it.  She realizes at once that you aren’t dead, after all—­in fact, that you’re a dangerous deceiver.  She wisks indignantly back into her hole.  Somebody else sees her alarm, and follows her example, and in two seconds it’s gone all about the place that you’re not a stump or a stone or a harmless dead thing waiting to be nibbled at, but a terrible enemy lying in wait for them all.  So you see how important it is to keep still, with the real stillness of dead things.”

The Child winked his eyes rapidly.  “But I can’t keep from winking, Uncle Andy,” he protested.  “I’ll promise not to wiggle my fingers or wrinkle my nose.  But if I don’t wink my eyes sometimes they’ll begin to smart and get full of tears, and then I won’t be able to see anything—­and then all the keeping still will be just wasted.”

“Of course, you won’t be able to keep from winking,” agreed Uncle Andy.  “And, of course, you won’t be able to keep from breathing.  But you mustn’t make a noise about either process.”

“How can I make a noise winking?” demanded the Child in a voice of eager surprise.  If such a thing were possible he wanted to learn how at once.

“Oh, nonsense!” returned Uncle Andy.  “Now, listen to me!  We’re nearly there, and I don’t want to have to do any more talking, because the quieter we are now the sooner the wild folk will get over their first suspiciousness.  Now, after we once get fixed, you won’t move a muscle, not even if two or three mosquitoes alight on you at once and begin to help themselves?”

“No!” agreed the Child confidently.  He was accustomed to letting mosquitoes bite him, just for the fun of seeing their gray, scrawny bodies swell up and redden till they looked like rubies.

“Well, we’ll hope there won’t be any mosquitoes!” said Uncle Andy reassuringly.  “And if a yellow-jacket lights on your sock and starts to crawl up under the leg of your knickers, you won’t stir?”

“N-no!” agreed the Child, with somewhat less confidence.  He had had such an experience before, and remembered it with a pang.  Then he remembered that he had enough string in his pockets to tie up both legs so securely that not the most enterprising of wasps could get under.  His confidence returned.  “No, Uncle Andy!” he repeated, with earnest resolution.