Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/121

 "Well, since we have a good log fire here, perhaps you would all like to hear the story of 'Number Puzzles before the Log Fire.' Listen, then, and look for Ching and Chang and An-am and all our friends, for they are all coming to visit us to-night.

"A curious thing happened one cold night, the place being the edge of a dense forest not many miles from here, the house being built of logs, the room being low and having a huge fireplace, the furniture consisting of a number of comfortable chairs arranged about the fire, and the time being early candlelight.

"It may well be thought that there was developed in the forest a certain amount of curiosity in the fact that a fire burned brightly in a house which contained no living soul and that plenty of candles lighted up a room for no apparent purpose; for the animal life of the forest has quite as much curiosity as you and I and most other people have, and this is the reason that into the window there looked the squirrels, the owls, and the rabbits that made their homes in the trees or in the burrows of the woods. 94