Upon a broad beam far up over the loft where the oat straw was stored, lived rather an exclusive family, that of the barn owl. You would never have dreamed they were there, so well did the brown feathers of the owls blend with the dimness of the shadows. Under the grain bins, far down below, lived a large colony of fat rats, while in among the dried clover raced and romped shoals of field-mice who wintered there. But there was another, a new tenant, feared and shunned by all the others. He came from no one knew where exactly; still the farmer's boy might have explained, for he had lost a pet ferret. The ferret was an ugly creature to look upon, its body long and snaky, and covered with yellowish-white, rather dirty-looking fur; its movements were sly and furtive, and somehow always struck terror to every tenant of the barn whenever they saw him steal forth. All winter the ferret had been there, and the hay was literally honeycombed with its secret tunnels, and woe to anything which happened to cross its evil trail. Each evening soon after twilight the swallows would return to the barn from their raids, and when the shadows grew quite dusky far down beneath them, then the bats and the barn owl family would launch themselves out into the night. "Squeak, squeak," ordered the big male bat; then like two shadows they would flit silently off upon their velvety wings. All during the early part of the night they chased gnats and moths, because they invariably got their best pickings before midnight. Before the dim shadows began to lift, the bats and owls had returned usually, but the bat family did not retire again behind their cobweb curtain; instead they hung themselves by their wing-claws head downward from the beam, folding their wings closely over their beady eyes, and thus they would sleep all day. Warmer days came, and livelier times were stirring among the tenants of the barn. Far up on her own beam Mrs. Barn Owl tended and fed two young downy owlets faithfully. Of course the owl mother knew the beam to be quite a safe spot for baby owls, but somehow she distrusted the skulking old ferret, whom she occasionally caught sight of; besides, rats sometimes climb beams, and once, before the owl eggs had hatched, something had stolen one egg; so that is really why there were but _two_ owlets instead of three.