On the tops of these hillocks the owners sat up in the sun
to bark and chatter and gossip with their nearest neighbors, always
ready to dive headlong down their front doors, with a twinkling of
their hind feet, at the approach of danger,
"But if the village was large, the Little Villager himself was
decidedly small. Some twelve or fifteen inches in length from the tip
of his innocent-looking nose to the end of his short and quite
undistinguished-looking tail, he seldom had occasion to stretch himself
out to his full length, and therefore he seldom got the credit of such
inches as he actually possessed. His ears were short and rounded, his
eyes were large, softly bright, and as innocent-looking as his nose.
His body was plump and rounded, and he looked almost as much a baby
when quite grown up as he had looked when he was still a responsibility
to his talkative little mother. In color he was of a grayish-brown on
top, and of a dingy white underneath, with a black tip to his tail to
give a finish which his costume would otherwise have lacked.
"Except for unimportant variations in size, there was perhaps some
hundreds of thousands of others, just like the Little Villager, sitting
on their hillocks, or popping in and out of their round doorways, and
chattering and barking in shrill chorus under the pale blue dome of a
lovely sky.
Pages:
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215