Massea and Docas went out into the woods. They hunted until they found an oak tree with two branches growing straight out at about the same height from the ground. Massea said, “Climb the tree, Docas;” so Docas scrambled up. Massea then handed him some straight sticks. Docas put these sticks across from branch to branch, and tied the ends fast to the two branches of the tree with deerskin strings. After this his father brought up some twigs that bent easily. They wove these back and forth among the sticks until they had a good floor for their storehouse. In the same way they made the sides and the top, leaving a hole near the trunk of the tree for a door. After the storehouse was made, Docas said to some of the other little Indian children, “Let’s go off and get some acorns to put in the storehouse.” They took their baskets and went off toward the hills. Soon they came to some big oak trees. One of the little boys called out, “Look! the ground is covered with acorns under that tree.” Sure enough, the acorns had dropped down from the tree until they were so thick on the ground that the children could scrape them up. Before night they had filled their baskets. Docas put the acorns he had gathered into the storehouse which he and his father had made. Every day the children went out to gather acorns; every night they poured them into the storehouse, and soon it was full. The day they finished filling it, Docas saw a little squirrel run up the trunk of the tree and go into the storehouse. Docas stood very still and watched. In a few minutes he saw the squirrel come back with his cheeks sticking out. He was carrying off the acorns. Docas ran over to where his father was lying in the shade of a large tree, and said, “Oh, father, we shall not have any acorns left in a few days. The squirrels have begun to carry them off.” Massea went over to the tree in which the storehouse was built. He smeared a broad band of pitch clear around the trunk. “This will stop them,” he said. The Indians had no more trouble after that; for if anything tried to climb the tree, it was caught in the band of sticky pitch. While Massea was smearing the pitch around the trunk, Docas saw a bird at work in a tree near by. “There is the woodpecker,” cried Docas, pointing to a woodpecker busily putting acorns away in his storehouse. The woodpecker’s storehouse was not like Massea’s. Every summer the woodpecker pecks a great many holes just the size of an acorn in the bark of a tree. When fall comes, and the acorns are ripe, he puts the best ones in his holes. He hammers them in so tight that they do not often fall out. [Illustration: After the storehouse was made.] “I hope we shall not have to take the woodpecker’s acorns this winter,” said Massea.