“What did you say run for?” he cried, angrily.
“You asked me if you should,” I replied.
“Then there ain’t no one coming?”
“No.”
“What a shame!” he cried. “It’s too bad.”
“Yes, for us to be frightened at nothing. Do you know what that noise was?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“It was a squirrel dropped a nut or a fir-cone. Why, it’s just the same noise as you hear in the country at home when they drop an acorn.”
“Then why didn’t you say so? I’ve never been in no countries where squirrels shies nuts and acorns at people. I’ve always seen ’em in cages spinning round and round.”
“That’s what it was, Esau. There’s nobody watching. Now then, how are you going to mark the tree?”