I peeped forth over his shoulder, and was as much bewildered as he by what I saw. Cloudy as was the night, glimpses of something white appeared everywhere, going and coming, or flopping fitfully about. There were odd sounds, too, as of soft footfalls, and now and then low, petulant cries.

"What in the world are they?" Addison muttered.

Soon one of the mysterious white objects nearly bounced in at the door, and we discovered it was a hare in its white winter coat. The whole swamp was full of hares, all on the leap, going in one direction.

Seizing a pole, Addison knocked over three or four of them; still they came by; there must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, all going one way.

At a distance we heard occasionally loud, sharp squealings, as of distress, and presently a lynx that seemed to be on the roof of the ox camp squalled hideously. Addison took the gun that we had brought, and while the hares were still flopping past, tried to get a shot at the lynx. But he was unable to make it out in the darkness, and it escaped.

I brought in one of the hares. I had an idea that we might add a bunch of them to our load for Portland; but it and the others that we had knocked over were too lank and light to be salable.

For an hour or more hares by the dozen continued to leap past the camp. We repeatedly heard lynxes, or other beasts of prey, snarling at a distance, as if following the mob of hares. Where all those hares came from, or where they went, or why they were traveling by night, we never knew. That is a question for naturalists. The next morning, when we went out to look for witches' brooms, there was not a hare in sight, except those that Addison had killed.

The witches' brooms were plentiful in the fir swamp along the stream; and as they were usually high up in the tree tops and not easily reached by climbing, we began to cut down such firs as had them. At that time and in that remote place, a fir-tree was of no value whatever.

Firs are easy trees to fell, for the wood is very soft, but they are bad to climb or handle on account of the pitch. We cut down about fifty trees that day, and left them as they fell, after getting the one or more witches' brooms in the top. Of those, we got eighty-two, all told; with the green fir boughs that went with them, they pretty nearly filled the rack. All were sear and dry, for they were just a densely interwoven mass of little twigs, but they contained a great many yellow flakes of dried pitch. In two of them we found the nests of flying squirrels; but in both cases the squirrels "flew" before the tree fell, and sailed away to other firs, standing near.

Altogether, it was a day of hard work. We were very tired—all the more so because we had slept hardly ten minutes the preceding night. But again we were much disturbed by the snarling of lynxes and the uneasiness of our horses at the ox camp. In fact, it was another dismal night for us; we hitched up at daybreak, and after a fearfully rough drive over bare logs and stones, and several breakages of harness, we reached the old Squire's, thoroughly tired out, at four o'clock in the afternoon.

The girls, however, were delighted with our lofty load of witches' brooms. In truth, it was rather picturesque, so many of those great gray bunches of intermeshed twigs, ensconced amid the green fir boughs that we had cut with them. A hall or a church would look odd indeed thus decorated.

Cheered by a good supper, we made ready to start for Portland the next morning. During the night, however, the weather changed. By daybreak on the twenty-third considerable snow had fallen, and we were able to travel this time on snow again. We had the rack piled higher than before, with the Christmas trees and the boxes of lion's-paw in the front end, and all those witches' brooms stacked and lashed on at the rear. The load was actually fourteen feet high, yet far from heavy; witches' brooms are dry and light. A northwest wind, blowing in heavy gusts behind us, fairly pushed us along the road. We got on fast, baited our team at New Gloucester at one o'clock in the afternoon, and by dusk had reached Welch's Tavern, eleven miles out of Portland.

Here we put up for the night; as our load was too bulky to draw into the barn, we were obliged to leave it in the yard outside, near the garden fence—fifty yards, perhaps, from the tavern piazza.

We had supper and were about to go to bed, when in came three fellows who had driven up from the city, on their way to hunt moose in Batchelder's Grant. All three were in a hilarious mood; they called for supper, and said that they meant to drive on to Ricker's Tavern, at the Poland Spring.

There was a lively fire on the hearth, for the night was cold and windy; the newcomers stood in front of it—while Addison and I sat back, looking on. The cause of their boisterousness was quite apparent; they were plentifully supplied with whiskey. Then, as now, the "Maine law" prohibited the sale of intoxicants; but this happened to be one of the numerous periods when the authorities were lax in enforcing the law.

Soon one of the newly arrived moose hunters drew out a large flask, from which all three drank. Turning to us, he cried, "Step up, boys, and take a nip!" Addison thanked him, but said that we were just going to bed.

"Oh, you'll sleep all the warmer for it. Come, take a swig with us."

We made no move to accept the invitation.

"Aw, you're temperance, are you?" one of the three exclaimed. "Nice little temperance lads!"

"Yes," Addison said, laughing. "But that's all right. We thank you just the same."

The three stood regarding us in an ugly mood, ready to quarrel. "If there's anything I hate," one of them remarked with a sneer, "it's a young fellow who's too much a mollycoddle to take a drink with a friend, and too stingy to pay for one."

We made no reply, and he continued to vent offensive remarks. The landlord came in, and Addison asked him to show us to our room. The hilarious trio called out insultingly to us as we ascended the stairs, and when the hotel keeper went down, we heard them asking him who we were and what our lofty load consisted of.

Half an hour or more later, we heard the moose hunters drive off, shouting uproariously; hardly three minutes afterward there was a sudden alarm below, and the window of our room was illuminated with a ruddy light.

"Fire! The place is afire!" Addison exclaimed.

We jumped up and looked out. The whole yard was brilliantly illuminated; then we saw that our load by the garden fence was on fire, and burning fiercely.

Throwing on a few clothes, we rushed downstairs. The hotel keeper and his hostler were already out with buckets of water, but could do little. The load was ablaze, and those dry, pitchy witches' brooms flamed up tremendously. Fortunately, the wind carried the flame and sparks away from the tavern and barns, or the whole establishment might have burned down. The crackling was terrific; the firs as well as the witches' brooms burned. Great gusts of flame and vapor rose, writhing and twisting in the wind. Any one might have imagined them to be witches of the olden time, riding wildly away up toward the half-obscured moon!

So great was the heat that it proved impossible to save the rack and sleds, or even the near-by garden fence, which had caught fire.

That disaster ended the trip. It was now too near Christmas Day to get more large firs, to say nothing of witches' brooms; and we were obliged to send word to this effect to our Portland patrons. The next morning Addison and I rode home on old Jim and Buckskin, with their harness tied up in a bundle before us. The wind was piercing and bleak; we were both so chilled as to be ill of a cold for several days afterward. The story that we had to tell at home was far from being an inspiriting one. Not only had we lost our load, traverse sleds and rack, but in due time we had a bill of ten dollars to pay the hotel keeper for his garden fence.

We always supposed that those drunken ruffians touched off our load just before driving away; but of course it may have been a spark from the chimney.

That was our first and last experience with witches' brooms.



CHAPTER XXXIV

THE LITTLE IMAGE PEDDLERS

I think it was the following Friday afternoon that a curious diversion occurred at the schoolhouse, just as the school was dismissed. Coming slowly along the white highway two small boys were espied, each carrying on his head a raft-like platform laden with plaster-of-Paris images. They were dark-complexioned little fellows, not more than twelve or thirteen years old; and were having difficulty to keep their feet and stagger along with their preposterous burdens.

The plaster casts comprised images of saints, elephants, giraffes, cherubs with little wings tinted in pink and yellow, a tall Madonna and Child, a bust of George Washington, a Napoleon, a grinning Voltaire, an angel with a pink trumpet and an evil-looking Tom Paine.

I suppose the loads were not as heavy as they looked, but the boys were having a hard time of it, to judge from their distressed faces peering anxiously from underneath the rafts which, at each step, rocked to and fro and seemed always on the point of toppling. Frantic clutches of small brown hands and the quick shifting of feet alone saved a smash-up.

The master was still in the schoolhouse with some of the older boys and girls; but the younger ones had rushed out when the bell rang.

"Hi, where are you going?" several shouted. "What you got on your heads?"

The little strangers turned their faces and, nodding violently, tried to smile ingratiatingly. Some one let fly a snowball, and in a moment the mob of boys, shouting and laughing noisily, chased after them. No harm was intended; it was merely excess of spirits at getting out from school. But the result was disastrous. The little fellows faced round in alarm, cried out wildly in an unknown tongue and then, in spite of their burdens, tried to run away.

The inevitable happened: one of them stumbled, fell against the other, and down they both went headlong with a crash. The tall Madonna was broken in two; Washington had his cocked hat crushed; the cherubs had lost their wings; and as for the elephants and the giraffes, there was a general mix-up of broken trunks and long necks.

The little fellows had scrambled to their feet, and after a frightened glance set up wails of lamentation in which the word padrone recurred fast and fearfully. By that time Master Brench, with the older pupils, among whom were my cousins, Addison, Theodora and Ellen, had come out. The old Squire, too, chanced to be approaching with a horse sled; often of late, since the traveling was bad, he had driven to the schoolhouse to get us.

It was a wholly compassionate group that now gathered about the forlorn itinerants. Who they were or whither they were traveling was at first far from clear, for they could not speak a word of English.

At last the old Squire, touched by their looks of despair and sorrow, decided to put their "rafts" on the horse sled and to take the little strangers home with us for the night.

They seemed to be chilled to the very marrow of their bones, for they hung round the stove in the kitchen as if they would never thaw out. When grandmother Ruth set a warm supper before them, they ate like starved animals and cast pathetic glances at the table to see whether there was more food. Tears stood in grandmother's eyes as she replenished their plates.

Little by little, with the aid of many signs and gestures, they managed to tell us their story. A padrone had brought them with nine other boys from Naples to sell plaster images for him; we gathered that this man, who lived in Portland, cast the images himself. The only English words he had taught them were "ten cent," "twenty-five cent" and "fifty cent"—the prices of the plaster casts.

A few days before, in spite of the bitterly cold weather, he had sent them out with their wares and bidden them to call at every house until they had sold their stock. Then they were to bring back the money they had taken in. He had given a package of dry, black bread to each of them and had told them to sleep at nights in barns.

Sales were few, and long after their bread was gone they had wandered on, not daring to go back until they had sold all their wares. What little money they had taken in they dared not spend for food, for fear the padrone would whip them! Their tale roused no little indignation in the old Squire and grandmother Ruth.

What with the food and the warmth the little Italians soon grew so sleepy that they drowsed off before our eyes. We made a couch of blankets for them in a warm corner, and they were still soundly asleep there when Addison and I went out to do the farm chores the next morning.

We kept the little image peddlers with us for several days thereafter. In fact, we were at a loss to know what to do with them, for a cold snap had come on. With their thin clothes and worn-out shoes they were in no condition either to go on or to go back; and, moreover, now that their images were broken, they were in terror of their padrone.

One of the boys was slightly larger and stronger than the other; his name, he managed to tell us, was Emilio Foresi. The first name of the other was Tomaso, but I have forgotten his surname. Tomaso, I recollect, had little gold rings in his ears. His voice was soft, and he had gentle manners.

Under the influence of good food and a warm place to sleep both boys brightened visibly and even grew vivacious. On the third morning we heard Emilio singing some Neapolitan folk-song to himself. Yet they were shy about singing to us, and it was only after considerable coaxing that Theodora induced them to sing a few Italian songs together. Halstead had an old violin, and we found that Tomaso could play it surprisingly well.

By carefully sorting our reserve of worn clothes and shoes we managed to fit out the little strangers more comfortably, but the problem of what to do with them remained. Grandmother Ruth thought that their padrone might trace them and appear on the scene.

Several days more passed; and then the old Squire, having business at Portland, decided to take them with him. He intended to find this Neapolitan padrone and try to secure better treatment for the boys in the future.

Addison drove them to the railway station, where the old Squire checked their empty image "rafts" in the baggage car. Before they left the old farm, first Emilio and then Tomaso took grandmother Ruth's hand very prettily and said, with deep feeling, "Vi ringrazio," several times, and managed to add "Tank you."

After his return from Portland the old Squire told us that he had gone with the lads to the place where they lodged and had taken an officer with him. They found the padrone in a basement, engaged in casting more images. At first the Italian was very angry; but partly by persuasion, partly by putting the fear of the law into his heart, they made him promise not to send his boys out again until May.

The old Squire also enlisted the sympathies of two women in Portland, who undertook to see that the boys were better housed and cared for in the future. And there for the time being the episode of the little image venders ended.

Twelve, perhaps it was thirteen, years passed. Addison, Halstead, Theodora and Ellen went their various ways in life, and of the group of young folks at the old farm I alone was left there. The old Squire was not able now to do more than oversee the work and to give me advice from his large experience of the past.

One day, late in October, we were in the apple house getting the crop of winter apples ready for market—Baldwins, Greenings, Blue Pearmains, Russets, Orange Apples, Arctic Reds—about four hundred barrels of them. We were sorting the apples carefully and putting the "number ones" in fresh, new barrels.

It was near noon, and grandmother Ruth had come out to say that our midday meal would soon be ready. She remained for a few moments and was counting the barrels we had put up that forenoon, when the doorway darkened behind her, and, looking up, we saw a stranger standing there—a well-dressed, rather handsome young man with dark hair and dark moustache. He was looking at us inquiringly, smilingly, almost timidly, I thought.

"How do you do?" I said. "You wanted to see some one here?"

He came a step nearer and said, with a foreign accent, "I ver glad see you again."

Seeing our puzzled looks, he went on: "I tink maybe you not remember me. But I come here one time, when snow ver deep. Ver cold then," and he shuddered to show how cold it was. "I stay here whole week. You no remember? I Emilio—Emilio Foresi."

Now, indeed, we remembered the little image peddlers. "Yes, yes, yes!" the old Squire cried.

"Well, I never! Can it be possible?" grandmother Ruth exclaimed. "Why, you've grown up, of course!"

Grown up, in good truth, and a very prosperous-looking young man was Emilio. He evidently remembered well his sojourn with us years ago, and, moreover, remembered it with pleasure; for now he grasped the old Squire's hand warmly and then, laughing joyously, held grandmother Ruth's in both his own.

"But where have you been all this time?" the old Squire exclaimed.

"I live now in Boston. Not long did I sell the images. I leave my padrone. He was hard man, not so ver bad, but ver poor. Then I have a cart and sell fruit, banan, orange, apple, in de street, four year. After that I have fruit stand on Tremont Street three year. I do ver well, and have five fruit stands; and now I buy apples to send to Genoa and Messina."

"But Tomaso, where's little Tomaso?" grandmother Ruth exclaimed.

Emilio's face saddened. "Tomaso he die," said he and shook his head. "He tak bad colds and have cough two year. Doctors said he have no chance in dis climate. I send him home to Napoli, and he die. But America fine place," Emilio added, as if defending our climate. "Good country. Everybody do well here."

We had Emilio as a guest at our midday meal that day—quite a different Emilio from the pinched little fellow of thirteen years before. He glanced round the old dining-room.

"Here where I sit dat first night!" he cried, laughing like a boy. "Big old clock right over there, Tomaso dis side of me, and young, kind, pretty girl on other side. All smile so kind to us; and oh, how good dat warm, nice food taste, we so hongry!"

He remembered every detail of his stay. The red apples that we had given him seemed to have impressed him especially; neither of the boys had ever eaten an apple before.

"Whole big basketful you fetch up from de cellar and say tak all you want," he ran on, still laughing. "Naver any apple taste like dose, so beeg, so red!"

As we sat and talked he told us of his present business and how he had tried the then novel experiment of shipping small lots of New England apples to Italy. There had been doubt whether the apples would bear the voyage and arrive in sound condition, but he had no trouble when the fruit was carefully selected and well put up. That led him to inquire about our apple crop and to explain that that was perhaps one of the reasons—not the only one—for his visit.

"I know you raise good apples," he said. "I like to buy them."

We told him how many we had, and he asked what price we expected to get. We answered that the local dealers had already fixed the price that fall at two dollars a barrel.

"I will pay you two dollars and a half," Emilio said without a moment's hesitation.

"But, Emilio," the old Squire put in, "we couldn't ask more than the market price."

"Ah, but you have good apples!" he replied. "I know how dose apples taste, and I know dey will be well barreled. No wormy apples, no bruised apples. Dey worf more because good honest man put dem up. I pay you two fifty."

We shipped the entire lot to him the following week and received prompt payment. Incidentally, we learned that Foresi's rating as a business man was high, and that he enjoyed the reputation of being an honorable dealer. For many years—as long as he was in the business, in fact—we sent him choice lots of winter fruit, for which he always insisted on paying a price considerably in advance of the market quotations.



CHAPTER XXXV

A JANUARY THAW

Just before school closed a disagreeable incident occurred.

It was one of the few times that the old Squire really reproved us sternly. Often, of course, he had to caution us a little, or speak to us about our conduct; but he usually did it in an easy, tolerant way, ending with a laugh or a joke. But that time he was in earnest.

He had come home that night just at dark from Three Rivers, in Canada, where he was engaged in a lumbering enterprise. He had been gone a fortnight, and during his absence Addison, Halstead and I had been doing the farm chores. The drive from the railway stations, on that bleak January afternoon had chilled the old gentleman, and he went directly into the sitting-room to get warm. So it was not until he came out to sit down to supper with us that he noticed a vacant chair at table.

"Where is Halstead?" he asked. "Isn't Halstead at home?"

No one answered at first; none of us liked to tell him what had happened. We had always found our cousin Halstead hard to get on with. Lately he had been complaining to us that he ought to be paid wages for his labor, when, as a matter of fact, what he did at the farm never half repaid the old Squire for his board, clothes and the trouble he gave. During the old gentleman's absence that winter Halstead had become worse than ever and had also begun making trouble at the district school.

His special crony at school was Alfred Batchelder, who had an extremely bad influence on him. Alfred was a genius at instigating mischief, and he and Halstead played an odious prank at the schoolhouse, as a result of which the school committee suspended them for three weeks.

That was unfortunate, for it turned the boys loose to run about in company. Usually they quarreled by the time they had been together half a day; but this time there seemed to be a special bond between them, and they hatched a secret project to go off trapping up in the great woods. They intended to stay until spring, when they would reappear with five hundred dollar's worth of fur!

Addison and I guessed that something of the sort was in the wind, for we noticed that Halstead was collecting old traps and that he was oiling a gun he called his. We also missed two thick horse blankets from the stable and a large hand sled. A frozen quarter of beef also disappeared from the wagon-house chamber.

"Let him go, and good riddance," Addison said, and we decided not to tell grandmother or the girls what we suspected. In fact, I fear that we hoped Halstead would go.

The following Friday afternoon while the rest of us were at school both boys disappeared. That evening Mrs. Batchelder sent over to inquire whether Alfred was at our house. Halstead, to his credit, had shown that he did not wish grandmother to worry about him. Shortly before two o'clock that afternoon, he had come hastily to the sitting-room door, and said, "Good-by, gram. I'm going away for a spell. Don't worry." Then, shutting the door, he had run off before she could reply or ask a question.

When we got home from school that night, Addison and I found traces of the runaways. There had been rain the week before, followed by a hard freeze and snow squalls, which had left a film of light snow on the hard crust beneath. At the rear of the west barn we found the tracks of a hand sled leading off across the fields toward the woods.

"Gone hunting, I guess," said Addison. "They are probably heading for the Old Slave's Farm, or for Adger's lumber camp. Let them go. They'll be sick to death of it in a week."

I felt much the same about it; but grandmother and Theodora were not a little disturbed. Ellen, however, sided with Addison. "Halse will be back by to-morrow night," she said. "He and Alfred will have a spat by that time."

Saturday and Sunday passed, however, and then all the following week, with no word from them.

On Tuesday evening, when they had been gone eleven days, Mrs. Batchelder hastened in with alarming news for us. She had had a letter from Alfred, she said, written from Berlin Falls in New Hampshire, where he had gone to work in a mill; but he had not said one word about Halstead!

"I don't think they could have gone off together," she said, and she read Alfred's letter aloud to us, or seemed to do so, but did not hand it to any of us to read.

We had never trusted Mrs. Batchelder implicitly; and a long time afterwards it came out that there was one sentence in that letter that she had not read to us. It was this: "Don't say anything to any of them about Halstead." Guessing that there had been trouble of some kind between the boys, she was frightened; to shield Alfred she had hurried over with the letter, and had tried to make us believe that the boys had not gone off together.

Addison and I still thought that the boys had set out in company, though we did not know what to make of Alfred's letter. We were waiting in that disturbed state of mind, hoping to hear something from Alfred that would clear up the mystery, when the old Squire came home.

"He has gone away, sir," Addison said at last, when the old gentleman inquired for Halstead at supper.

"Gone away? Where? What for?" the old gentleman asked in much astonishment; and then the whole story had to be told him.

The old Squire heard it through without saying much. When we had finished, he asked, "Did you know that Halstead meant to go away?"

"We did not know for certain, sir," Addison replied.

"Still, you both knew something about it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did either one of you do anything to prevent it?"

We had to admit that we had done nothing.

The old Squire regarded us a moment or two in silence.

"In one of the oldest narratives of life that have come down to us," he said at last, "we read that there were once two brothers living together, who did not agree and who often fell out. After a time one of them disappeared, and when the other—his name was Cain—was asked what had become of his brother, he replied, 'Am I my brother's keeper?'

"In this world we all have to be our brothers' keepers," the old Squire continued. "We are all to a degree responsible for the good behavior and safety of our fellow beings. If we shirk that duty, troubles come and crimes are committed that might have been prevented. Especially in a family like ours, each ought to have the good of all at heart and do his best to make things go right."

That was a great deal for the old Squire to say to us. Addison and I saw just where we had shirked and where we had let temper and resentment influence us. Scarcely another word was said at table. It was one of those times of self-searching and reflection that occasionally come unbidden in every family circle. The old Squire went into the sitting-room to think it over and to learn what he could from grandmother. He was very tired, and I am afraid he felt somewhat discouraged about us.

Addison and I went up to our room early that evening. We exchanged scarcely a word as we went gloomily to bed. We knew that we were to blame; but we also felt tremendously indignant with Halstead.

Very early the next morning, however, long before it was light, Addison roused me.

"Wake up," he said. "Let's go see if we can find that noodle of ours and get him back home."

It was cold and dark and dreary; one of those miserable, shivery mornings when you hate to stir out of bed. But I got up, for I agreed with Addison that we ought to look for Halstead.

After dabbling our faces in ice-cold water and dressing we tiptoed downstairs. Going to the kitchen, we kindled a fire in order to get a bit of breakfast before we started. Theodora had heard us and came hastily down to bear a hand. She guessed what we meant to do.

"I'm glad you're going," said she as she began to make coffee and to warm some food.

It was partly the bitter weather, I think, but Addison and I felt so cross that we could hardly trust ourselves to speak.

"I'll put you up a nice, big lunch," Theodora said, trying to cheer us. "And I do hope that you will find him at the Old Slave's Farm, or over at Adger's camp. If you do, you may all be back by night."

She stole up to her room to get a pair of new double mittens that she had just finished knitting for Addison; and for me she brought down a woolen neck muffler that grandmother had knitted for her. Life brightens up, even in a Maine winter, with a girl like that round.

Addison took his shotgun, and I carried the basket of luncheon. No snow had come since Halstead and Alfred left, and we could still see along the old lumber road the faint marks of their hand-sled runners. In the hollows where the film of snow was a little deeper, two boot tracks were visible.

"Halse wouldn't go off far into the woods alone, after Alf left him," said I.

"No, he is too big a coward," said Addison.

It was thirteen miles up to the Old Slave's Farm, where the negro—who called himself Pinkney Doman—had lived for so many years before the Civil War.

"We can make it in three hours!" Addison exclaimed. "If we find him there, we shall be back before dark. And we had better hurry," he added, with a glance at the sky. "For I guess there's a storm coming; feels like it."

In a yellow-birch top at a little opening near the old road we saw two partridges eating buds; Addison shot one of them and took it along, slung to his gun barrel.

The faint trail of the sled continued along the old winter road all the way up to the clearing where the negro had lived, and by ten o'clock we came into view of the two log cabins. Very still and solitary they looked under that cold gray sky.

"No smoke," Addison said. "But we'll soon know." He called once. We then hurried forward and pushed open the door of the larger cabin. No one was there.

But clearly the two truants had stopped there, for the sled track led directly to the door of the cabin. There had been a fire in the stone fireplace. Beside a log at the door, too, Addison espied a hatchet that a while before we had missed from the tool bench in the wagon-house.

"Well, if that isn't like their carelessness!" he exclaimed, laughing. "I'll take this along."

But the runaways had not tarried long. We found the sled track again, leading into the woods at the northwest of the clearing.

"Well, that settles it," said Addison. "They haven't gone to Adger's, for that is east from here. I'll tell you! They went to Boundary Camp on Lurvey's Stream. And that's eighteen or nineteen miles from here." He glanced at the sky. "Now, what shall we do? It will snow to-night."

"Perhaps we could get up there by dark," said I.

For a moment Addison considered. "All right!" he exclaimed. "It's a long jaunt. But come on!"

On we tramped again, following that will-o'-the-wisp of a hand-sled track into the thick spruce forest. For the first nine or ten miles everything went well; then one of the dangers of the great Maine woods in winter suddenly presented itself.

About one o'clock it began to snow—little icy pellets that rattled down through the tree tops like fine shot or sifted sand. The chill, damp wind sighing drearily across the forest presaged a northeaster.

"We've got to hurry!" Addison said, glancing round.

We both struck into a trot and, with our eyes fastened to the trail, ran on for about two miles until we came to a brook down in a gorge. By the time we had crossed that the storm was upon us and the forest had taken on the bewildering misty, gray look that even the most experienced woodsman has reason to dread.

The snow that had fallen had obscured the faint sled tracks, and Addison, who was ahead, pulled up. "We can't do it," he said. "We shan't get through."

My first impulse was to run on, to run faster; that is always your first instinct in such cases. Then I remembered the old Squire's advice to us what to do if we should ever happen to be caught by a snowstorm in the great woods:

"Don't go on a moment after you feel bewildered. Don't start to run, and don't get excited. Stop right where you are and camp. If you run, you will begin to circle, get crazy and perish before morning."

Addison cast another uneasy glance into the dim forest ahead. "Better camp, I guess," he said. Turning, we hurried back into the hollow.

A few yards back from the brook were two rocks, about six feet apart and nearly as high as my head. Hard snow lay between them; but we broke it into pieces by stamping on it, and succeeded in clearing most of it away, so that we bared the leaves and twigs that covered the ground. Then, while I hacked off dry branches from a fallen fir-tree, Addison gathered a few curled rolls of bark from several birches near by and kindled a fire between the rocks.

We kept the fire going for more than an hour, until all the remaining snow was thawed and the frost and wet thoroughly dried out, and until the rocks had become so hot that we could hardly touch them. Then, after hauling away the brands and embers, we brushed the place clean with green boughs, and thus made for ourselves a warm, dry spot between the rocks.

With poles and green boughs, we made for our shelter a roof that was tight enough to keep out the snow. Except that we made a little mat of bark and dry fir brush, to lie on, and that Addison brought an armful of curled bark from the birches and a quantity of dry sticks to burn now and then, that was the extent of our preparation for the night. We had as warm and comfortable a den as any one could wish for.

We decided not to cook our partridge, but to eat the food in our basket. After our meal we got a drink of water at the brook, then crawled inside our den and—as Maine woodsmen say—"pulled the hole in after us," by stopping it with boughs.

"Now, let it storm!" Addison exclaimed.

Taking off our jackets and spreading them over us, we cuddled down there by the warm rocks, and there we passed the night safely and by no means uncomfortably.

It was still snowing fast in the morning; but the flakes were larger now, and the weather had perceptibly moderated during the latter part of the night. The forest, however, still looked too misty for us to find our way through it.

"We might as well take it easy," Addison said. "If Halse is at Boundary Camp, he will not leave in such weather as this."

All that forenoon it snowed steadily, and in fact for most of the afternoon. More than a foot of snow had come. We opened the front of our snow-coated den, kindled a fire there, and after dressing our partridge broiled it over the embers. Still it snowed; but the weather now was much warmer. By the following morning, we thought, we should have clear, cold weather and should be able to set out again.

But never were weather predictions more at fault. The next morning it was raining furiously; and our den had begun to drip. In fact, a veritable January thaw had set in.

All that forenoon it poured steadily; and water began to show yellow through the snow in the brook beside our camp. Addison crept out and looked round, but soon came back dripping wet.

"Look here!" said he in some excitement. "There's a freshet coming, and Lurvey's Stream is between us and Boundary Camp. If we don't start soon, we can't get there at all."

Just as he finished speaking a deep, portentous rumbling began and continued for several seconds. The distant mountain sides seemed to reverberate with it, and at the end the whole forest shook with heavy, jarring sounds. We both leaped out into the rain.

"What is it, Ad?" I cried.

"Earthquake," said Addison at last. "I've heard the old Squire say that one sometimes comes in Maine, when there is a great winter thaw."

The deep jar and tremor gave us a strange sense of insecurity and terror; there seemed to be no telling what might happen next. Accordingly, we abandoned our moist den and set off in the rain. We went halfway to our knees at every step in the now soft, slushy snow. Addison went ahead with the hatchet, spotting a tree every hundred feet or so, and I followed in his tracks, carrying the basket and the gun. In fifteen minutes we were wet to our skins.

For three or four miles we were uncertain of our course. The forest then lightened ahead, and presently we came out on the shore of a small lake that looked yellow over its whole surface.

"Good!" Addison exclaimed. "This must be Lone Pond, and see, away over there is Birchboard Mountain. Boundary Camp is just this side of it. It can't be more than four or five miles."

Skirting the south shore of the pond, we pushed on through fir and cedar swamps. Worse traveling it would be impossible to imagine. Every hole and hollow was full of yellow slush. Finally, after another two hours or so of hard going, we came out on Lurvey's Stream about half a mile below the camp, which was on the other bank. A foot or more of water was running yellow over the ice; but the ice itself was still firm, and we were able to cross on it.

Even before we came in sight of the camp, we smelled wood smoke.

"Halse is there!" I exclaimed.

"It may be trappers from over the line," Addison said. "Be cautious."

I ran forward, however, and peeped in at the little window. Some one was crawling on the floor, partly behind the old camp stove, and I had to look twice before I could make out that it was really Halstead. Then we burst in upon him, and Addison said rather shortly, "Well, hunter, what are you doing here?"

Halstead raised himself slowly off the floor beside the stove, stared at us for a moment without saying a word, and then suddenly burst into tears!

It was some moments before Halstead could speak, he was so shaken with sobs. We then discovered that his left leg was virtually useless, and that in general he was in a bad plight. He had been there for eight days in that condition, crawling round on one knee and his hands to keep a fire and to cook his food.

"But how did you get hurt?" Addison asked.

"That Alf did it!" Halstead cried; and then, with tears still flowing, he went on to tell the story—his side of it.

While getting their breakfast on the third morning after they had reached the camp, they had had a dispute about making their coffee; hard names had followed, and at last, in high temper, Alfred had sprung up declaring that he would not camp with Halstead another hour. Grabbing the gun, he had started off.

"That's my gun! Leave it here! Drop it!" Halstead had shouted angrily and had run after him.

Down near the bank of the stream, Halstead had overtaken him and had tried to wrest the gun from him. Alfred had turned, struck him, and then given him so hard a push that he had fallen over sidewise with his foot down between two logs. Alfred had run on without even looking back.

The story did not astonish us. For the time being, however, we were chiefly concerned to find out how badly Halstead was injured, with a view to getting him home. His ankle was swollen, sore and painful; he could not touch the foot to the floor, and he howled when we tried to move it.

Evidently he had suffered a good deal, and pity prevented us from freeing our minds to him as fully as we should otherwise have done. The main thing now was to get him home, where a doctor could attend him.

"We shall have to haul him on the hand sled," Addison said to me; and fortunately the sled that Alfred and he had taken was there at the camp.

But first we cooked a meal of some of the beef, corn meal and coffee they had taken from the old Squire's.

It was still raining; and on going out an hour later we found that the stream had risen so high that we could not cross it. The afternoon, too, was waning; and, urgent as Halstead's case appeared, we had to give up the idea of starting that night. During the rest of the afternoon we busied ourselves rigging a rude seat on the sled.

There were good dry bunks at the camp, but little sleep was in store for us. Halstead was in a fevered, querulous mood and kept calling to us for something or other all night long. Whenever he fell asleep he tumbled about and hurt his ankle. That would partly wake him and set him crying, or shouting what he would do to Alfred.

Throughout the night the roar of the stream outside grew louder, and at daybreak it was running feather white. As for the snow, most of it had disappeared; stumps, logs and stones showed through it everywhere; the swamps were flooded, and every hole, hollow and depression was full of water.

That was Wednesday. We made a soup of the beef bone, cooked johnny-cake from the corn meal and kept Halstead as quiet as possible. We had left home early Sunday morning and knew that our folks would be greatly worried about all three of us.

As the day passed, the stream rose steadily until the water was nearly up to the camp door.

"If only we had a boat, we could put Halse in it and go home," Addison said.

We discussed making a raft, for if we could navigate the stream we could descend it to within four miles of the old farm. But the roaring yellow torrent was clearly so tumultuous that no raft that we could build would hold together for a minute; and we resigned ourselves to pass another night in the camp.

The end of the thaw was at hand, however; at sunset the sky lightened, and during the evening the stars came out. At midnight, while replenishing the fire, I heard smart gusts of wind blowing from the northwest. It was clearing off cold. Noticing that it seemed very light outside, I went to the door and saw the bright arch of a splendid aurora spanning the whole sky. It was so beautiful that I waked Addison to see it.

By morning winter weather had come again; the snow slush was frozen. The stream, however, was still too high to be crossed, and the swamps and meadows were also impassable. We now bethought ourselves of another route home, by way of a lumber trail that led southward to Lurvey's Mills, where there was a bridge over the stream.

"It is five miles farther, but it is our only chance of getting home this week," Addison said.

We were busy bundling Halstead up for the sled trip when the door opened and in stepped Asa Doane, one of our hired men at the farm, and a neighbor named Davis.

"Well, well, here you are, then!" Asa exclaimed in a tone of great relief. "Do you know that the old Squire's got ten men out searching the woods for you? Why, the folks at home are scared half to death!"

We were not sorry to see Asa and Davis, and to have help for the long pull homeward. We made a start, and after a very hard tramp we finally reached the old farm, thoroughly tired out, at eight o'clock that evening.

Theodora and grandmother were so affected at seeing us back that they actually shed tears. The old Squire said little; but it was plain to see that he was greatly relieved.

If the day had been a fatiguing one for us, it had been doubly so for poor Halstead. We carried him up to his room, put him to bed and sent for a doctor. He did not leave his room again for three weeks and required no end of care from grandmother and the girls.

Little was ever said among us afterwards of this escapade of Halstead's. As for Alfred, he came sneaking home about a month later, but had the decency, or perhaps it was the prudence, to keep away from us for nearly a year.



CHAPTER XXXVI

UNCLE BILLY MURCH'S HAIR-RAISER

At about this time Tom and I were up at the Murches' one evening to see Willis, and persuaded old Uncle Billy, Willis' grandfather, to tell us his panther story again. That panther story was a veritable hair-raiser; and we were never tired of hearing the old man tell it. Owing to our severe climate panthers were never very numerous in northern New England—not nearly so numerous as panther stories, in which the "panther" is usually a Canadian lynx. Even at present we occasionally hear of a catamount or an "Indian devil"; but perhaps the last real panther was trapped and shot in the town of Wardsboro, Vermont, in 1875. There can be no doubt whatever that it was a genuine panther, for its skin and bones, handsomely mounted, as taxidermists say, can be seen at any time in the Museum of Natural History in Boston. It is a fine specimen of the New England variety of the Felis concolor and would no doubt have proved an ugly customer to meet on a dark night.

No doubt there were panthers larger than that one. According to Uncle Billy the Wardsboro panther was a mere kitten to the one that he once encountered when he was a boy of fourteen. Our old Squire, who then was fifteen years old, was with him and shared the experience. But try as we would, we never could induce him to tell the story. "You get Uncle Billy Murch to tell you about that," he would say and laugh. "That's Uncle Billy's story; he tells it a little better every time, and he has got that catamount so large now that I am beginning to think that it must have been a survival of the cave tiger." Yet when pinned down to it the old Squire admitted that he was with Grandsir Billy on that night and that they did have an alarming experience with an animal that beyond doubt was a large and hungry panther.

I must have heard the story ten or twelve times in all, and I recollect many of Grandsir Billy's words and expressions. But the old man's vocabulary was "picturesque"; when he was describing exciting events he was apt to drift into language that was more forceful than choice. It will be best therefore to give this account substantially as years later—long after Grandsir Billy had passed away—the old Squire told it one afternoon when he and I were driving home together from a field day of the grange.

It seems that back in the days when the county was first settled the pioneers found the ponds and streams in peaceful possession of an ancient trapper whom they called Daddy Goss. Trapping was his business; he did nothing else. Every fall and winter while he was tending his trap lines he used to stay for a week or a month at a time at the settlers' houses. Frequently the wife of a settler at whose house he was staying would have to take drastic measures to get rid of him; no gentler measures than taking his chair and his plate away from the table or putting his bundle of things out on the doorstep would move him. "As slow to take the hint as old Daddy Goss," came to be a local proverb.

One December while he was staying at the Murch farm he fell sick with a heavy cold, and while he lay in bed he fretted constantly about his traps. At last he offered Billy Murch, who was then fourteen years old, half of all the animals that might be in them if he Would go out and fetch them home. The line of traps, he said, began at a large pine-tree near the head of Stoss Pond and thence extended round about through the then unbroken forest for a distance of perhaps fifteen miles to a birch-bark camp on Lurvey's Stream that the old trapper had built to shelter himself from storms two years before.

Billy wanted to go but his mother would not consent to his going alone. So he talked the matter over with the old Squire, who was a year older than Billy, and offered him half the profits if he would accompany him; and the result was that the two boys took the old man's flintlock gun and set off at daylight the following morning. They were not to stop to skin any animals that they found in the traps, but were to make bunches of them and carry them home on their backs. The old trapper would not trust them either to skin the catch or to reset the traps. Since there were only two or three inches of snow on the ground, they did not have to use snowshoes and hoped therefore that they should return by evening. They found the first trap on Stoss Pond and from there followed the line without much difficulty, for Daddy Goss had made a trail by spotting trees with his hatchet. Moreover, the marten traps were "boxed" into spruce-trees at a height of two or three feet from the ground and could easily be seen.

There is an old saying among trappers that nothing catches game like a neglected trap; and that time at least the adage was correct. The boys found a marten in the second trap and found others at frequent intervals. What was remarkable, they found three minks, two ermines and a fisher in traps on high, hilly forest land. I think the old Squire once said that they took nineteen martens from the traps, of which there were one hundred and two.

The boys soon found themselves loaded down with fur. Since they were to have half of what they brought home, they did not like to leave anything. So with an ever increasing burden on their backs they toiled on from trap to trap. Before night each was carrying at least forty and perhaps fifty pounds. They had brought thongs for tying the animals together. Billy carried his bunch slung over the stock of the gun, which he carried over his shoulder. His comrade carried his on a short pole. A good many of the martens were still alive in the traps and had to be knocked on the head; the blood from them dripped from the packs on the snow behind.

Fifteen miles is a long tramp for boys of their age, and, since December days are short, it is not astonishing that the afternoon had waned and the sun set before they reached the birch-bark camp. From that place they would have to descend Lurvey's Stream for two or three miles to Lurvey's Mills, and then reach home by way of a wagon road. Dusk falls rapidly in the woods. By the time they reached the camp they could barely see the "blazes" on the tree trunks. They decided to kindle a fire and remain at the camp till the next morning. Each began at once to collect dry branches and bark from the white birch-trees that grew along the stream.

It was not until then that Billy made a bad discovery. In those days there were no matches; for kindling a fire pioneers depended on igniting a little powder and tow in the pans of their flintlocks. But when Billy unslung his pack of martens from the stock of the gun he found that the thong had somehow loosened the flint in the lock and that it had dropped out and was lost. Both boys were discouraged, for the night was chilly. They crept inside the camp, which was barely large enough to hold two persons. It was merely a boxlike structure only six feet square and five feet high; sheets of bark from the large white birch-trees were tied with small, flexible spruce roots to the frame, which was of light poles. The door was a small square sheet of bark bound to a little frame that would open and shut on curious wooden hinges. Though the camp was frail, it kept off the wind and was slightly warmer than it was outside. The boys found a couch of dry fir boughs inside, but the only cover for it was a dried deerskin and one of Daddy Goss's old coats.

Meanwhile full darkness had fallen; and there would be no moon till late at night. An owl came circling round and whoop-hooed dismally. Billy said that he wished he were at home, and his companion admitted that he wished he were there also. They closed the door and then, lying down as close together as they could, put the two bunches of fur at their feet and covered themselves with the old coat and the deer hide. But they had scarcely lain down when crashes in the underbrush startled them, and they heard a great noise as of a herd of cattle running past. The old Squire peeped out at the door. "I guess it's deer," he said. "Something's scared them."

He lay down again; but a few minutes later they heard what sounded like a shriek a long way off up the stream. Billy started up. "Now what do you s'pose that was, Joe?" he exclaimed.

"I—I don't know."

"It sounded," said Billy, "just as the schoolmistress did when she stepped on a snake last summer."

They sat up to listen; pretty soon they heard the noise again, this time much nearer.

"It's coming this way, Joe!" Billy whispered. "What do you s'pose it is?"

They continued to listen, and soon they heard a short, ugly shriek close by in the woods.

"Joe, I'm afraid that's a catamount," Billy said unsteadily.

The old Squire picked up the useless gun and sat with it in his hands. For some time there were no more outcries; but after a while they heard the crumpling of snow and the snapping of twigs behind the camp. Some large animal was walking round; several times they heard the sough of its breath.

"Joe, I'm scared!" Billy whispered.

The old Squire was frightened also, but he opened the door a crack and peered out. On the snow under the birch-trees he could distinguish the dark form of a large panther. It had seen the door move and had crouched as if to spring. He saw the flash of two fiery eyes in the dim light and again heard the sough of the creature's breath before he clapped the door shut and braced the gun against it. But he had no confidence in the flimsy birch bark; so he got out his jackknife and bade Billy get out his. It did not occur to them that the panther had scented the freshly killed game and had followed the trail of it.

The boys passed dreadful hours of suspense during that long, cold December night. More than once they heard the creature "sharpen its claws" on tree trunks, and the sound was by no means cheerful. The brute seemed bent on remaining near the little camp. I remember that Grandsir Billy said that they heard it "garp" several times; I suppose he meant yawn. The circumstance seems rather strange. He said that it "garped" like a big dog every time it sharpened its claws. Yet it did not cease to watch the little inclosure.

At last, tired with watching the boys fell asleep, a circumstance that is not strange perhaps when you consider they had plodded fifteen miles that day and had carried heavy loads.

They slept for some time. From later events the boys could infer what took place outside the hut. The late-rising moon swung up from behind the dark tree-tops. The panther had crept to within a few feet of the shack. Suddenly it crouched and sprang upon the roof of the little camp! When it struck the flimsy roof, the boys woke up. For an instant the whole frail structure shook; then it reeled and partly collapsed. The boys sprang up, and as they did so a big paw with claws spread burst through the roof and came down between them! The claws opened and closed as the paw moved to and fro. Billy's face was scratched slightly, and Joe's jacket was ripped. Joe then seized the paw with both hands and tried to hold it. The roof swayed and trembled and, for a moment, seemed about to fall; then the panther withdrew its paw, and the boys heard the creature leap off and bound away.

Hunters say that if a panther misses its first spring it will not try again. That may sometimes be true; but in this case the panther went off a short distance among the trees and after a few minutes crept forward as if to spring again. Terribly excited, the boys peered out at it and waited. They could not close the door of the camp. The whole structure had lurched to one side, and several sheets of bark had fallen from the light frame. Billy wanted to rush out and run, but his comrade, fearful lest the panther should chase them, held him back.

Now for the first time it occurred to Joe that he might divert the creature's attention by throwing out some of the dead martens. Cutting one of them loose, he slung it as far as he could into the woods. Immediately the panther stole forward, seized the carcass of the little animal in its mouth and ran off. But before long it returned, and then Joe threw out a second marten, which the panther carried off. After the boys had thrown out two more martens, the panther did not return, and they saw nothing more of it. As soon as day dawned they crept forth from their shattered camp, hastened down the stream and reached home with their trapped animals.

The first time I heard Grandsir Billy tell the story he said that the panther was as large as a yearling steer. Later he declared that it was the size of a two-year-old steer; and I have frequently heard him say that it was as large as a three-year-old! The old Squire said it was as large as the largest dog he ever saw.



CHAPTER XXXVII

ADDISON'S POCKETFUL OF AUGER CHIPS

Another year had now passed, and we were not much nearer realizing our plans for getting an education than when Master Pierson left us the winter before.

Owing to the bad times and a close money market, lumbering scarcely more than paid expenses that winter. This and the loss of five work-horses the previous November, put such stress on the family purse, that we felt it would be unkind to ask the old Squire to send four of us to the village Academy that spring, as had been planned.

"We shall have to wait another year," Theodora said soberly.

"It will always be 'another year' with us, I guess!" Ellen exclaimed sadly.

But during March that spring, a shrewd stroke of mother wit, on the part of Addison, greatly relieved the situation and, in fact, quite set us on our feet in the matter of funds. This, however, requires a bit of explanation.

For fifty years grandsir Cranston had lavished his love and care on the old Cranston farm, situated three miles from our place. He had been born there, and he had lived and worked there all his life. Year by year he had cleared the fields of stone and fenced them with walls. The farm buildings looked neat and well-cared for. The sixty-acre wood-lot that stretched from the fields up to the foot of Hedgehog Ledge had been cleaned and cleared of undergrowth until you could drive a team from end to end of it, among the three hundred or more immense old sugar maples and yellow birches.

That wood-lot, indeed, had been the old farmer's special pride. He loved those big old-growth maples, loved them so well that he would not tap them in the spring for maple sugar. It shortened the lives of trees, he said, to tap them, particularly large old trees.

It was therefore distressing to see how, after grandsir Cranston died, the farm was allowed to run down and go to ruin. His wife had died years before; they had no children; and the only relatives were a brother and a nephew in Portland, and a niece in Bangor. Cranston had left no will. The three heirs could not agree about dividing the property. The case had gone to court and stayed there for four years.

Meanwhile the farm was rented first to one and then to another tenant, who cropped the fields, let weeds, briers, and bushes grow, neglected the buildings and opened unsightly gaps in the hitherto tidy stone walls. The taxes went unpaid; none of the heirs would pay a cent toward them; and the fifth year after the old farmer's death the place was advertised for sale at auction for delinquent taxes.

In March of the fifth year after grandsir Cranston died, Willis and Ben Murch wrote to one of the Cranston heirs, and got permission to tap the maples in the wood-lot at the foot of the ledge and to make sugar there.

They tapped two hundred trees, three spiles to the tree, and had a great run of sap. Addison and I went over one afternoon to see them "boil down." They had built an "arch" of stones for their kettles up near the foot of the great ledge, and had a cosy little shed there. Sap was running well that day; and toward sunset, since they had no team, we helped them to gather the day's run in pails by hand. It was no easy task, for there were two feet or more of soft snow on the ground, and there were as many as three hundred brimming bucketfuls that had to be carried to the sap holders at the shed.

Several times I thought that Addison was shirking. I noticed that at nearly every tree he stopped, put down his sap pails, picked up a handful of the auger chips that lay in the snow at the foot of the tree, and stood there turning them over with his fingers. The boys had used an inch and a half auger, for in those days people thought that the bigger the auger hole and the deeper they bored, the more sap would flow.

"Don't hurry, Ad," I said, smiling, as we passed each other. "The snow's soft! Pails of sap are heavy!"

He grinned, but said nothing. Afterward I saw him slyly slipping handfuls of those chips into his pocket. What he wanted them for I could not imagine; and later, after sunset, as we were going home, I asked him why he had carried away a pocketful of auger chips.

He looked at me shrewdly, but would not reply. Then, after a minute, he asked me whether I thought that Ben or Willis had seen him pick them up.

"What if they did?" I asked. But I could get nothing further from him.

It was that very evening I think, after we got home, that we saw the notice the tax collector had put in the county paper announcing the sale at public auction of the Cranston farm on the following Thursday, for delinquent taxes. The paper had come that night, and Theodora read the notice aloud at supper. The announcement briefly described the farm property, and among other values mentioned five hundred cords of rock-maple wood ready to cut and go to market.

"That's that old sugar lot up by the big ledge, where Willis and Ben were making syrup," said I. "Ad, whatever did you do with that pocketful of auger chips?"

Addison glanced at me queerly. He seemed disturbed, but said nothing. The following forenoon, when he and I were making a hot-bed for early garden vegetables, he remarked that he meant to go to that auction.

It was not the kind of auction sale that draws a crowd of people; there was only one piece of property to be sold, and that was an expensive one. Not more than twenty persons came to it—mostly prosperous farmers or lumbermen, who intended to buy the place as a speculation if it should go at a low price. The old Squire was not there; he had gone to Portland the day before; but Addison went over, as he had planned, and Willis Murch and I went with him.

Hilburn, the tax collector, was there, and two of the selectmen of the town, besides Cole, the auctioneer. At four o'clock Hilburn stood on the house steps, read the published notice of the sale and the court warrant for it. The town, he said, would deduct $114—the amount of unpaid taxes—from the sum received for the farm. Otherwise the place would be sold intact to the highest bidder.

The auctioneer then mounted the steps, read the Cranston warranty deed of the farm, as copied from the county records, describing the premises, lines, and corners. "A fine piece of property, which can soon be put into good shape," he added. "How much am I offered for it?"

After a pause, Zachary Lurvey, the owner of Lurvey's Lumber Mills, started the bidding by offering $1,000.

"One thousand dollars," repeated the auctioneer. "I am offered one thousand dollars. Of course that isn't what this farm is really worth. Only one thousand! Who offers more?"

"Fifteen hundred," said a man named Haines, who had arrived from the southern part of the township while the deed was being read.

"Sixteen," said another: and presently another said, "Seventeen!"

I noticed that Addison was edging up nearer the steps, but I was amazed to hear him call out, "Seventeen fifty!"

"Ad!" I whispered. "What if Cole knocks it off to you? You have only $100 in the savings bank. You couldn't pay for it."

I thought he had made a bid just for fun, or to show off. Addison paid no attention to me, but watched the auctioneer closely. The others, too, seemed surprised at Addison's bid. Lurvey turned and looked at him sharply. I suppose he thought that Addison was bidding for the old Squire; but I knew that the old Squire had no thought of buying the farm.

After a few moments Lurvey called, "Eighteen hundred!"

"Eighteen fifty," said Addison; and now I grew uneasy for him in good earnest.

"You had better stop that," I whispered. "They'll get it off on to you if you don't take care." And I pulled his sleeve impatiently.

Willis was grinning broadly; he also thought that Addison was bluffing the other bidders.

Haines then said, "Nineteen hundred"; and Lurvey at once cried, "Nineteen twenty-five!"

It was now apparent that Lurvey meant to get the farm if he could, and that Haines also wanted it. The auctioneer glanced toward us. Much to my relief, Addison now backed off a little, as if he had made his best bid and was going away; but to my consternation he turned when near the gate and cried, "Nineteen fifty!"

"Are you crazy?" I whispered, and tried to get him to leave. He backed up against the gatepost, however, and stood there, watching the auctioneer. Lurvey looked suspicious and disgruntled, but after a pause, said in a low voice, "Nineteen seventy-five." Haines then raised the bid to $2,000, and the auctioneer repeated that offer several times. We thought Haines would get it; but Lurvey finally cried, "Two thousand twenty-five!" and the auctioneer began calling, "Going—going—going for two thousand twenty-five!" when Addison shouted, "Two thousand fifty!"

Lurvey cast an angry look at him. Haines turned away; and Cole, after waiting for further bids, cried, "Going—going—gone at two thousand fifty to that young man by the gate—if he has got the money to pay for it!"

"You've done it now, Ad!" I exclaimed, in distress. "How are you going to get out of this?"

I was frightened for him; I did not know what the consequences of his prank would be. To my surprise and relief, Addison went to Hilburn and handed him $100.

"I'll pay a hundred down," he said, "to bind my bid, and the balance to-morrow."

The two selectmen and Hilburn smiled, but accepted it. I remembered then that Addison had gone to the village the day before, and guessed that he had drawn his savings from the bank. But I did not see how he could raise $1,950 by the next day. All the way home I wanted to ask him what he planned to do. However, I did not like to question him before Willis and two other boys who were with us. All the way home Addison seemed rather excited.

The family were at supper when we went in. The old Squire was back from Portland; grandmother and the girls had told him that we had gone to the auction. The first thing he did was to ask us whether the farm had been sold, and how much it had brought.

"Two thousand and fifty," said I, with a glance at Addison.

"That's all it's worth," the old Squire said. "Who bought it?"

Addison looked embarrassed; and to help him out I said jocosely, "Oh, it was bid off by a young fellow we saw there."

"What was his name?" the old Squire asked in surprise.

"He spells it A-d-d-i-s-o-n," said I.

There was a sudden pause round the table.

"Yes," I continued, laughing, for I thought the best thing for Ad was to have the old Squire know the facts at once. "He paid $100 of it down, and he has to get round with nineteen hundred and fifty more by to-morrow noon."

Food was quite forgotten by this time. The old Squire, grandmother, and the girls were looking at Addison in much concern.

"Haven't you been rather rash?" the old Squire said, gravely.

"Maybe I have," Addison admitted. "But the bank has promised to lend me the money to-morrow at seven per cent. if—if,"—he hesitated and reddened visibly,—"if you will put your name on the note with me, sir."

The old Squire's face was a study. He looked surprised, grave, and stern; but his kind old heart stood the test.

"My son," he said, after a short pause, "what led you into this? You must tell me before we go farther."

"It was something I noticed over there in that wood-lot. I haven't said anything about it so far; but I think I am right."

He went upstairs to his trunk and brought down a handful of those auger chips, and also a letter that he had received recently. He spread the chips on the table by the old Squire's plate, and the latter, after a glance at them, put on his reading glasses. Dry as the chips had become, we could still see what looked like tiny bubbles and pits in the wood.

"Bird's-eye, isn't it?" the old Squire said, taking up a chip in his fingers. "Bird's-eye maple. Was there more than one tree of this?"

"More than forty, sir, that I saw myself, and I've no doubt there are others," Addison replied.

"Ah!" the old Squire exclaimed, with a look of understanding kindling in his face. "I see! I see!"

During our three or four winters at the old Squire's we boys had naturally picked up considerable knowledge about lumber and lumber values.

"Yes," Addison said. "That's why I planned to get hold of that wood-lot. I wrote to Jones & Adams to see what they would give for clear, kiln-dried bird's-eye maple lumber, for furniture and room finish, and in this letter they offer $90 per thousand. I haven't a doubt we can get a hundred thousand feet of bird's-eye out of that lot."

"If Lurvey had known that," said I, "he wouldn't have stopped bidding at two thousand!"

"You may be sure he wouldn't," the old Squire remarked, with a smile.

"As for the quarreling heirs," said Addison, "they'll be well satisfied to get that much for the farm."

The next day the old Squire accompanied Addison to the savings bank and indorsed his note. The bank at once lent Addison the money necessary to pay for the farm.

No one learned what Addison's real motive in bidding for the farm had been until the following winter, when we cut the larger part of the maple-trees in the wood-lot and sawed them into three-inch plank at our own mill. Afterward we kiln-dried the plank, and shipped it to the furniture company.

Out of the three hundred or more sugar maples that we cut in that lot, eighty-nine proved to be bird's-eye, from which we realized well over $7,000. We also got $600 for the firewood; and two years later we sold the old farm for $1,500, making in all a handsome profit. It seemed no more than right that $3,000 of it should go to Addison.

The rest of us more than half expected that Addison would retain this handsome bonus, and use it wholly for his own education, since the fine profit we had made was due entirely to his own sagacity.

But no, he said at once that we were all to share it with him; and after thinking the matter over, the old Squire saw his way clear to add two thousand from his share of the profits.

We therefore entered on our course at the Academy the following spring, with what was deemed a safe fund for future expenses.

THE END