life in the forest is very different from life in the meadow, and the forest people have many ways of doing which are not known in the world outside. they are a quiet people and do not often talk or sing when there are strangers near. you could never get acquainted with them until you had learned to be quiet also, and to walk through the underbrush without snapping twigs at every step. then, if you were to live among them and speak their language, you would find that there are many things about which it is not polite to talk. and there is a reason for all this.