"Club together and buy at the apothecaries a hundred dollars worth of pison; fix it in scraps of meat, and scatter it through and through the woods; and if it don't make the animals scarce, I'll quit a guessin'. Then git up a hunt for the birds--a univarsal hunt, and have judges and give premiums to them that count the most game; continue the hunt a week or fortnight for two or three years runnin', and the birds won't pester us much after that." "The plan is a good one, and I'll do my part to carry it into execution. I am all out of patience with the creatures. If we do not kill more of them, they will get to be worse than Egypt's plagues." A town meeting was called, and Colwell's plan was adopted. A large sum was contributed to procure poison; and bird hunts were arranged. The poison was scattered abroad, and hundreds of foxes and wolves lay dead all over the woods and swamps; while the money was returned with interest to the people, by the sale of furs gathered from their bodies. The bird hunts came off with equal success, and there followed a marked cessation of annoyance. Only now and then a robin molested a fruit tree; and the tap of the woodpecker was seldom heard. Hawks and crows that were left, looked so wistful and lonely they were not begrudged the little they ventured at times to take. Blackbirds troubled the corn but little, and were more reserved of their mannerless clack. The fowls could repose at night without fear of foxes; and lambs might wander in the wide woods pasture, and lie down unharmed by wolves. It could not be denied however that the fields and Woods were less cheerful, if they were more safe. Some could not sense the change, except in an increase of harvests, cattle and fowls; others again, more spiritual in feeling, hearing and sight, discerned a gloom in the air, and a gloom on every scene, that seemed ominous of woe. Fanny Fabens took all that gloom to her heart, and she seemed another being. Her nature was glad and joyous, as a grove full of robins; but now she grew sad, and wept and moaned, where once she laughed and sang. She could hardly account for all her grief; she seemed to inhale it from the air, imbibe it from the light, and taste it in the breath of the woods, and the odor of the flowers.