BACHELOR LIFE AGAIN
CHAPTER XV
BACHELOR LIFE AGAIN
BANNERTAIL was left to himself, like a bachelor driven to his club. He had become very wise in woodlore so that the food question was no longer serious. Not counting the remnant of the nuts still unearthed, the swelling buds of every sweet-sapped tree were wholesome, delicious food, the inner bark of sweet birch twigs was good, there were grubs and borers under flakes of bark, the pucker berries or red chokeberries that grow in the lowlands still hung in clusters. Their puckery sourness last fall had made all creatures let them alone, but a winter weathering had sweetened them, and now they were toothsome as well as abundant sustenance.