The forest was cut down, and the land was farmed. Then the farmers moved away, and a new woods grew up where the fields had been. And now the old man who wears trousers of pounded bark and a sweater of knitted milkweed keeps chickens in the woods.

hen of the woods


There's an old farmhouse nearby, left over from the days when the woods were under cultivation. The people who live there would invite the old man to dinner, but he won't come. So they make soup and set it by the side of the road for him, in a china tureen.



tureen of the lawn


The old man still won't come. He sends a possum posse instead. They pour the soup into tin-can canteens and bring it back to him, and he shares it out, round a fire, there in the woods, late.