Page:The House Without Windows.djvu/41

Rh square block of wood. Lifting it up, she found great heaps of milkweed pods, kept from springing open by the pressure of the earth against them. She rejoiced in this too. There was enough of the milkweed to make a bed for herself. She covered the bed with her old dress, which she had kept all this time in case she should need it. Never was such a soft bed seen. In the burrow she also built several shelves of boards, and on these she heaped up more cordary berries and their seeds, which were just beginning to come.

The next day was the last of November. In the morning Eepersip, after a long sleep in the burrow, woke up to find the world white with the first snow. The entrance of the tunnel was placed at Such an angle that never a flake found its way down in Eepersip was delighted; she danced and skipped about, with the chipmunk at her heels.

The next day it stopped snowing, and the sun came out, shining dimly. Every snow-crystal sparkled like a diamond. Eepersip and the chipmunk dashed across the meadow and looked far, far down. Though ordinary eyes could not have seen to the end of this mass of glittering whiteness, Eepersip's could, and beyond all the icicles and snowflakes she saw the river calmly shining, blue as the sky. In its rippling surface Eepersip could