It was a night and a place for music. The mellow light lay softly over the orchard tree, on an old branch of which little Solomon sat mooning himself before his door. He could see, not far away, the giant chestnut trees that shaded the banks of a little ravine; and hear the murmuring sound of Shanty Creek, where Nata[3] grew up, and where her grandchildren now played hide-and-seek. Near at hand stood a noble oak, with a big dead branch at the top that was famous the country round as a look-out post for hawks and crows; and maybe an eagle now and then had used it, in years gone by.
But hawk and crow were asleep, and toads were trilling a lullaby from the pond, while far, far off in the heart of the woods, a whip-poor-will called once, twice, and again.
Solomon loved the dusk. His life was fullest then and his sight was keenest. His eyes were wide open, and he could see clearly the shadow of the leaves when the wind moved them lightly from time to time. He was at ease in the great night-world, and master of many a secret that sleepy-eyed day-folk never guess. As he shook out his loose, soft coat and breathed the cool air, he felt the pleasant tang of a hunger that has with it no fear of famine.
Once more he sent his challenge through the moonlight with quivering, quavering voice, and some who heard it loved the darkness better for this spirit of the night, and some shivered as if with dread. For Solomon had sounded his hunting call, and, as with the baying of hounds or the tune of a hunter's horn, one ear might find music in the note and another hear only a wail.
Then, silent as a shadow, he left his branch. Solomon, a little lone hunter in the dark, was off on the chase. Whither he went or what he caught, there was no sound to tell, until, suddenly, one quick squeak way over beside the corn-crib might have notified a farmer that another mouse was gone. But the owner of the corn-crib was asleep, and dreaming, more than likely, that the cat, which was at that moment disturbing a pair of meadow bobolinks, was somehow wholly to be thanked for the scarcity of mice about the place.
[Illustration: _Oh, the wise, wise look of him._]
Solomon was not wasteful about his food. He swallowed his evening breakfast whole. That is, he swallowed all but the tail, which was fairly long and stuck out of his mouth for some time, giving him rather a queer two-tailed look, one at each end! But there was no one about to laugh at him, and it was, in some respects, an excellent way to make a meal. For one thing, it saved him all trouble of cutting up his food; and then, too, there was no danger of his overeating, for he could tell that he had had enough as long as there wasn't room for the tail. And after the good nutritious parts of his breakfast were digested, he had a comfortable way of spitting out the skin and bones all wadded together in a tidy pellet. An owl is not the only kind of bird, by any means, that has a habit of spitting out hard stuff that is swallowed with the food. A crow tucks away many a discarded cud of that sort; and even the thrush, half an hour or so after a dainty fare of wild cherries, taken whole, drops from his bill to the ground the pits that have been squeezed out of the fruit by the digestive mill inside of him.
