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been big ones. One would croak and another would answer him. They were arguing—and arguing always makes me feel like running away.
    â€œYou did,” one frog would say. “I didn’t,” would answer the other. “You did,” “I didn’t,” “You did,” “I didn’t”—until I had to get up and go away from there. A handful of stones would have come in handy, but I didn’t have any stones and anyway it was so dark in there you couldn’t see your hand before your face. I had to go mighty slow, feeling the road with my feet, to keep from bumping into something.
    After a while, I came to an opening. I could see the stars. Right in the middle, on what seemed to be a mound, was a big tree. I crawled up close to it and dropped down, too tired to go another step. I slept hard, too, for it was broad daylight when I awoke. Something was talking to me. I couldn’t make it out for a long time, then I opened my eyes and a chipmunk was standing on a limb with his tail jerking up and down, looking at me. He was saying a lot, too, asking me what I was doing there and if I were lost and telling me to cheer up, that a camp was just around the corner and there was bacon frying and maybe an egg or two.
    Funny how you can get chummy with the wild animals when you’re in the woods. I had to laugh at that chipmunk—he was so busy talking, with that tail of his jerking up and down all the time. I found out that the woods creatures don’t want to hurt you, and they’d all help you if they could.
    I just lay there and listened—and laughed a little. It didn’t seem to me that I could ever get up. I tried to lift my head, but it just plopped back like a head made of putty. I closed my eyes and dozed again, and then I rolled over and pulled myself up by hanging onto the tree. It sounds funny, but I wasn’t glad another day had come. 18 I was sorry, because I had to walk some more and my feet were so sore and covered with cuts and bites that every step made me yell out. That was at first, but a person can get used to anything, I guess. After my feet got warmed up, it wasn’t so bad.
    I would stop, now and then, when I found a patch of wet, green moss, and just stand in it. Boy, it felt good!
    The little chipmunk seemed to want company, too, for he followed me like a dog, only he went along in the trees over my head. He kept chattering all the time. He was a pretty little fellow, and I wondered why he went so far with me. 19
    I hadn’t gone far along that tote road, maybe two or three miles, when I knew I was coming to a cabin. First, I saw a pile of tin cans, sort of a dump, but the cans were all rusted, and you couldn’t tell what kind of cans they were.
    I stood and looked at them. Even a rusty tin can looks good to a fellow lost in the woods. It shows that someone else has been there, ahead of him. Not far from the pile of tin cans I saw some rusty iron barrel hoops hanging over a limb, and then the road turned and I came right out onto a clearing.
    Christmas! That was a glad moment for me. I was kind of stooped over, I was so tired, and I thought sure someone would come running out of a door and say, “Hello, where did you come from!” But nobody did.
    I stopped a while and looked things over. The cabin was made of logs and the bark had partly peeled off, but the door was closed with a latch—at least that’s how I remember it. There wasn’t any bacon smell, like you generally find around camps. Then I knew what had happened. The camp was deserted and I wasn’t much better off than before I found it. Still, there was a house there and a fellow might find something to eat on a shelf, something someone had forgotten—a can of beans, maybe, or evaporated milk. Boy, wouldn’t that be good—a can of beans!
    I hurried as fast as I could. I lifted the latch and the door almost fell off its hinges. That scared me