Instantly Winkle was at her side. He understood "take a walk" as well as he understood "rabbit!" His beagle nose skimmed the ground as he led the way to the woods, past Daddy's train station, past the playground at Veterans' Acres. Maria was glad she had strong legs and good lungs.

She breathed in the wonderful smell of the dry oak leaves her feet crunched. Winkle zig-zagged ahead of her, snuffling up a thousand wonderful smells under the leaves. The woods song was running in Maria's head and she'd just begun to sing it when something leaped up near her feet and bounded away!

"Rabbit!" she shouted. Winkle ran where Maria pointed, baying joyfully. But Winkle on all fours is short, and he did not see the rabbit jag sharply to the right. Maria, taller on her two legs, saw Winkle run straight ahead when the rabbit turned. Soon all she could see was Winkle's tail moving through the tall grass. But a moment later, she saw Winkle reappear, sniffing the ground for the trail. Finding it, he bayed again as he ran to the right.

Maria sat down on a log to wait for him. A cluster of shiny berries grew nearby. She was looking at them when a crow flew to a low branch and screamed at her.

"Caw! Caw! Don't eat those berries, kid! Caw! That's pokeweed. Whole plant is poison-caw!-as soon as it gets flowers. Caw! Caw! Caw!"

"I wasn't going to eat any," protested Maria. "Please don't yell so loud."

"Caw! What's wrong with loud? Caw! I always yell-caw!-as loud as I can. Caw! Caw! I like loud! Caw!"

Maria covered her ears. She wished Winkle would hurry back, but he was baying again far away. The crow flapped off in the direction of the sound. "Maybe it will scold Winkie and send him back," she thought hopefully. "It might. . . . Might not."

She heard a squeaky laugh on the other side of her log and looked over her shoulder. There was the rabbit scratching its ear with a hind leg, its sides puffing in and out as it panted to catch its breath.

"Why are you laughing?" Maria asked.

"It's so funny," the rabbit gasped. "I do it every time, and every time he runs by straight."

"Not funny, Rabbit." Maria felt sorry for Winkle. "Where is he now?"

"Is funny, Maria. Winkle is going in circles on trails I made." The rabbit giggled, then hopped away, singing a verse of the woods song that Maria hadn't heard:

Rabbit in the grass; Winkle missed the turn,
Always runs on past; never seems to learn.
Yuk! yuk! yuk! yuk! he! he! he! he!
I just laughed and laughed.
Always runs on past; Winkle can't catch me!

Maria got tired of sitting and lay across the log on her tummy, thumping her toes on the ground to the time of the woods song. A squirrel came down a tree, head first. Staying out of her reach, it flipped its tail and shrieked at her.

"Why did you cut that log down? Don't you know dead trees have holes in them for squirrels to live in? I've been looking all over for a home. Winter's coming and I NEED that hole. I need it! I need it! How will I stay warm all winter if you cut down every dead tree you see?"

"I didn't . . . " Maria began.

"Not polite to interrupt!" interrupted the squirrel with a petulant flip of its tail. "I wanted that dead tree! Shame on you!"

"I didn't cut down the tree," Maria said very fast.

"Don't interrupt, I told you," screamed the squirrel.

"But you never stop talking!" Maria said. "It's MY turn to talk now."

"Stop interrupting! It's Not your turn. It's ALWAYS my turn to talk."

Maria stood up and walked on. She heard a squeaky laugh; the rabbit grinned at her from beneath the boughs of a cedar tree. It sang another verse she hadn't heard:

You can't talk to squirrel;
It won't let you talk.
Listen, little girl, better take a walk.
Chatter chatter chatter chatter
Drive you nutsy, girl.
Better take a walk; you can't talk to squirrel!

Maria had been following a dry creek bed which was getting harder and harder to follow because so many fallen trees lay across it. She decided to climb the steep bank and walk beside the creek bed instead of in it. Maria was very careful not to let her feet slip and make channels where rain would wash away the soil.

At the top she sat down in a grassy spot to pick the stickers
out of her socks.

"Are those stickers good to eat?" a tiny voice asked.

"Can't know," Maria said. A field mouse with one front paw on Maria's shoe was stretching up to sniff at a sticker.

"May I taste one?" the mouse asked.

"OK, but you gotta help me pull them out first," Maria bargained. The mouse thought it was fun to pull out the stickers with its teeth, so Maria did one sock while it did the other.

Suddenly Maria saw something diving out of the sky and shouted, "Look out!" The mouse popped down its hole just as a red-tailed hawk's sharp talons hit the ground where the mouse had been.

The hawk glared at Maria before flying to a dead branch in a nearby oak tree. "I'm hungry!" it cried in its high sharp voice. "I haven't had anything to eat all day!"

"Come to my yard and I'll give you some dry bread," offered Maria.

"I don't eat bread," screamed the hawk. "I eat mice!"

"I want to be your friend," Maria said. "But what can I do if one of my woodland friends wants to eat another?"

"Do nothing!" cried the hawk. "Watch, listen, be silent!" It lifted off the branch and flapped upward until it could ride the high winds.

Maria walked on silently. When she was quite deep in the woods, she heard a rustling sound like something large moving through thick branches. She stopped and looked toward the sound, keeping even her breath quiet. Three does came into view over the hill. They saw her, raised their heads to look at her with big brown eyes, then bounded back into the woods, the white under their tails showing.

She was startled to hear Winkle barking frantically. He came over the hill where the deer had disappeared, not chasing them, but running toward Maria. He stopped beside her and turned to bark toward the hill.

"What are you doing?"

"Telling those huge, fierce creatures not to come back or YOU'LL eat them up!" barked Winkle, glancing at her to be sure she was still with him.

Maria laughed. "Let's go home now. The r-a-b-b-i-t is safe from you and the deer are safe from me and we've had a lovely time in the woods watching and listening."

"And smelling," snuffled Winkle. So they watched, listened, and smelled all the way home.