"A sack will be much better," said Old Bob the gardener, "it will be easier to carry. Ask Mary the cook for one."
Mary the cook had a flour sack, which she was glad to give to Buddy. She also gave him some sandwiches for his lunch, so that he need not hurry back.
Buddy whistled to Old Dog Sandy, and the two started gaily for the back pasture. There was no hurry, so he thought he would go and see if there were any thorn-apples left. There was a big old hawthorn tree, with low branches, standing all by itself in the pasture. There was a funny sort of ring around it, like a tiny circus ring. Buddy had once asked Old Bob the gardener about it; what had caused it. And he had said that he really didn't know; that it had always been there since he could remember; but that his old grandmother, who came from Ireland, had told him when he was little that it was a fairy ring. Made by the feet of the fairies, when they danced in the moonlight. That they always danced around hawthorn trees.
As Buddy came near to the tree he was thinking about Old Bob's story of the fairies, and wishing he could see them. He was sure he could hear something that sounded like wings rustling, and little voices whispering; it came from the branches of the old hawthorn. For a minute he thought perhaps the tree was full of fairies, resting after their dance in the moonlight. And then Old Dog Sandy came running up, and began to bark, and a whole flock of Bob Whites arose from the tree, and flew away with a whirr into the woods. They had been lunching on the thorn-apples.
"Now see what you've done, Sandy," said Buddy. "You must be more careful; I don't want you to frighten the Little Neighbors. I am always telling you so. Just once more now, and I shall send you home."
Old Dog Sandy hung his head; he just couldn't seem to remember that he must not bark at things; anyway, wild things; they didn't belong to anyone, he thought.
Buddy Jim took only a handful of the crimson thorn-apples; they were not so very good, anyway; and besides, he felt that they belonged to the birds, and it was hazel-nuts that he had come for.
As he got to the hazel thicket he heard small voices chattering and laughing, and caught a glimpse of Red Squirrel and his family, with their pockets just bulging with the hazel-nuts.
When they saw him they all whisked up in a big tree, and hid in the branches. "Don't be afraid, Little Neighbors," called Buddy. "We won't hurt you; it is only when you steal eggs that we don't like you."
But Red Squirrel and his family would not come back. They thought that he might be like other boys they had met, and that he would follow them to their nests, and take away their winter supply of nicely-shelled nuts.