In the construction of the nest and the accumulation of the eggs no interest whatever was displayed by the splendid drake. He never, unless by chance, went near it. But as a lover the lordly fellow was most gallant and ardent. While his mate was on the nest laying, he was usually to be seen floating on the open mere beyond the reed-fringe, pruning his plumage in the cold pink rays of the first of the sunrise.

It was plumage well worth pruning, this of his, and fully justified his pride in it. The shining, silken, iridescent dark green of the head and neck; the snowy, sharply defined, narrow collar of white, dividing the green of the neck from the brownish ash of the back and the gorgeous chestnut of the breast; the delicate pure grey of the belly finely pencilled with black lines; the rich, glossy purple of the broad wing-bars shot with green reflections; the jaunty, recurved black feathers of the tail; the smart, citron-yellow of the bill and feet;—all these charms were ample excuse for his coxcombry and continual posings. They were ample excuse, too, for the admiration bestowed upon him by his mottled brown mate, whose colours were obviously designed not for show but for concealment. When sitting on her nest, she was practically indistinguishable from the twigs and dead leaves that surrounded her.

Having laid her egg, the brown duck would cover the precious contents of the nest with twigs and leaves, that they might not be betrayed by their conspicuous colour. Then she would steal, silently as a shadow, through the willow stems to the water's edge, and paddle cautiously out through the rushes to the open water. On reaching her mate all this caution would be laid aside, and the two would set up an animated and confidential quacking. They would sometimes sail around each other slowly in circles, with much arching of necks and quaint stiff bowing of heads; and sometimes they would chase each other in scurrying, napping rushes along the bright surface of the water. Both before and after these gay exercises they would feed quietly in the shallows, pulling up water-weed sprouts and tender roots, or sifting insects and little shellfish from the mud by means of the sensitive tips and guttered edges of their bills. The mallard pair had few enemies to dread, their island being so far from shore that no four-footed marauder, not even the semi-amphibious mink himself, ever visited it. And the region was one too remote for the visits of the pot-hunter. In fact, there was only one foe against whom it behoved them to be on ceaseless guard. This was that bloodthirsty and tireless slayer, the goshawk, or great grey henhawk. Where that grim peril was concerned, the brown duck would take no risks. For the sake of those eggs among the willow stems, she held her life very dear, never flying more than a short circle around the island to stretch her wings, never swimming or feeding any distance from the safe covert of the rushes.

But with the glowing drake it was different. High spirited, bold for all his wariness, and magnificently strong of wing, from sheer restlessness he occasionally flew high above the ponds. And one day, when some distance from home, the great hawk saw him and swooped down upon him from aerial heights.

The impending doom caught the drake's eye in time for him to avoid the stroke of that irresistible descent. His short wings, with their muscles of steel, winnowed the air with sudden, tremendous force, and he shot ahead at a speed which must have reached the rate of a hundred miles an hour. When the swooping hawk had rushed down to his level, he was nearly fifty yards in the lead.

In such a case most of the larger hawks would have given up the chase, and soared again to abide the chance for a more fortunate swoop. But not so the implacable goshawk. His great pinions were capable not only of soaring and sailing and swooping, but of the rapid and violent flapping of the short-winged birds; and he had at his command a speed even greater than that of the rushing fugitive. As he pursued, his wings tore the air with a strident, hissing noise; and the speed of the drake seemed as nothing before that savage, inescapable onrush. Had the drake been above open water, he would have hurled himself straight downward, and seized the one chance of escape by diving; but beneath him at this moment there was nothing but naked swamp and sloppy flats. In less than two minutes the hiss of the pursuing wings was close behind him. He gave a hoarse squawk, as he realized that doom had overtaken him. Then one set of piercing talons clutched his outstretched neck, cutting clean through his wind-pipe; and another set bit deep into the glossy chestnut of his breast.

For several days the widowed duck kept calling loudly up and down the edges of the reeds—but at a safe distance from the nest. When she went to lay, she stayed ever longer and longer on the eggs, brooding them. Three more eggs she laid after the disappearance of her mate, and then, having nine in the nest, she began to sit; and the open water beyond the reed fringes saw her no more.

At first she would slip off the nest for a few minutes every day, very stealthily, to feed and stretch and take a noiseless dip in the shallow water among the reeds; but as time went on she left the eggs only once in two days. Twice a day she would turn the eggs over carefully, and at the same time change their respective positions in the nest, so that those which had been for some hours in the centre, close to her hot and almost naked breast, might take their turn in the cooler space just under her wings. By this means each egg got its fair share of heat, properly distributed, and the little life taking shape within escaped the distortion which might have been caused by lying too long in one position. Whenever the wary brown mother left the nest, she covered the eggs with down, now, which kept the warmth in better than leaves could. And whenever she came back from her brief swim, her dripping feathers supplied the eggs with needed moisture.

It is a general law that the older an egg is the longer it takes to hatch. The eggs of the mallard mother, of course, varied in age from fifteen days to one before she began to sit. This being the case, at the end of the long month of incubation they would have hatched at intervals covering in all, perhaps, a full day and a half; and complications would have arisen. But the wise mother had counteracted the working of the law by sitting a little while every day. Therefore, as a matter of fact, the older eggs got the larger share of the brooding, in exact proportion; and the building of the little lives within the shells went on with almost perfect uniformity.

During the long, silent month of her patient brooding, spring had wandered away and summer had spread thick green and yellow lily blooms all over the lonely meres. A bland but heavy heat came down through the willow tops, so that the brown duck sometimes panted at her task, and sat with open bill, or with wings half raised from the eggs. Then, one night, she heard faint tappings and peepings beneath her. Sturdy young bills began chipping at the inside of the shells, speedily breaking them. Each duckling, as he chipped the shell just before the tip of his beak, would turn a little way around in his narrow quarters; till presently the shell would fall apart, neatly divided into halves; and the wet duckling, tumbling forth, would snuggle up against the mother's hot breast and thighs to dry. Whenever this happened, the wise mother would reach her head beneath, and fit the two halves of shell one within the other, or else thrust them out of the nest entirely, lest they should get slipped over another egg and smother the occupant. Sometimes she fitted several sets of the empty shells together, that they might take up less room; and altogether she showed that she perfectly understood her business. Then, late in the morning, when the green world among the willows and rushes was still and warm and sweet, she led her fluffy, sturdy brood straight down to the water, and taught them to feed on the insects that clung to the bulrush stalks.



Mrs. Gammit and the Porcupines

"I hain't come to borry yer gun, Mr. Barron, but to ax yer advice."

Mrs. Gammit's rare appearances were always abrupt, like her speech; and it was without surprise—though he had not seen her for a month or more—that Joe Barron turned to greet her.

"It's at yer sarvice, jest as the gun would be ef ye wanted it, Mrs. Gammit—an' welcome! But come in an' set down an' git cooled off a mite. 'Tain't no place to talk, out here in the bilin' sun."

Mrs. Gammit seated herself on the end of the bench, just inside the kitchen door, twitched off her limp, pink cotton sunbonnet, and wiped her flushed face with the sleeve of her calico waist. Quite unsubdued by the heat and moisture of the noonday sun, under which she had tramped nine miles through the forest, her short, stiff, grey hair stood up in irregular tufts above her weather-beaten forehead. Her host, sitting sidewise on the edge of the table so that he could swing one leg freely and spit cleanly through the open window, bit off a contemplative quid of "blackjack" tobacco, and waited for her to unfold the problems that troubled her.

Mrs. Gammit's rugged features were modelled to fit an expression of vigorous, if not belligerent, self-confidence. She knew her capabilities, well-tried in some sixty odd years of unprotected spinsterhood. Merit alone, not matrimony, it was, that had crowned this unsullied spinsterhood with the honorary title of "Mrs." Her massive and energetic nose was usually carried somewhat high, in a not unjustifiable scorn of such foolish circumstance as might seek to thwart her will.

But to-day these strenuous features found themselves surprised by an expression of doubt, of bewilderment, almost one might say of humility. At her little clearing in the heart of the great wilderness things had been happening which, to her amazement, she could not understand. Hitherto she had found an explanation, clear at least to herself, for everything that befell her in these silent backwoods which other folks seemed to find so absurdly mysterious. Armed with her self-confidence she had been able, hitherto, to deal with every situation that had challenged her, and in a manner quite satisfactory to herself, however the eternal verities may have smiled at it. But now, at last, she was finding herself baffled.

Joe Barron waited with the patience of the backwoodsman and the Indian, to whom, as to Nature herself, time seems no object, though they always somehow manage to be on time. Mrs. Gammit continued to fan her hot face with her sunbonnet, and to ponder her problems, while the lines deepened between her eyes. A big black and yellow wasp buzzed angrily against the window-pane, bewildered because it could not get through the transparent barrier. A little grey hen, with large, drooping comb vividly scarlet, hopped on to the doorsill, eyed Mrs. Gammit with surprise and disapprobation, and ran away to warn the rest of the flock that there was a woman round the place. That, as they all knew by inheritance from the "shooings" which their forefathers had suffered, meant that they would no longer be allowed in the kitchen to pick up crumbs.

At last Mrs. Gammit spoke—but with difficulty, for it came hard to her to ask advice of any one.

"I sp'ose now, mebbe, Mr. Barron, you know more about the woods critters'n what I do?" she inquired, hopefully but doubtfully.

The woodsman lifted his eyebrows in some surprise at the question.

"Well, now, if I don't I'd oughter," said he, "seein' as how I've kinder lived round amongst 'em all my life. If I know anything, it's the backwoods an' all what pertains to that same!"

"Yes, you'd oughter know more about them than I do!" assented Mrs. Gammit, with a touch of severity which seemed to add "and see that you do!" Then she shut her mouth firmly and fell to fanning herself again, her thoughts apparently far away.

"I hope 'tain't no serious trouble ye're in!" ventured her host presently, with the amiable intention of helping her to deliver her soul of its burden.

But, manlike, he struck the wrong note.

"Do you suppose," snapped Mrs. Gammit, "I'd be traipsin' over here nine mile thro' the hot woods to ax yer advice, Mr. Barron, if 'twarn't serious?" And she began to regret that she had come. Men never did understand anything, anyway.

At this sudden acerbity the woodsman stroked his chin with his hand, to hide the ghost of a smile which flickered over his lean mouth.

"Jest like a woman, to git riled over nawthin'!" he thought. "Sounds kinder nice an' homey, too!" But aloud, being always patient with the sex, he said coaxingly—

"Then it's right proud I am that ye should come to me about it, Mrs. Gammit. I reckon I kin help you out, mebbe. What's wrong?"

With a burst of relief Mrs. Gammit declared her sorrow.

"It's the aigs," said she, passionately. "Fer nigh on to a month, now, I've been alosin' of 'em as fast as the hens kin git 'em laid. An' all I kin do, I cain't find out what's atakin' 'em."

Having reached the point of asking advice, an expression of pathetic hopefulness came into her weather-beaten face. Under quite other conditions it might almost have been possible for Mrs. Gammit to learn to lean on a man, if he were careful not to disagree with her.

"Oh! Aigs!" said the woodsman, relaxing slightly the tension of his sympathy. "Well, now, let's try an' git right to the root of the trouble. Air ye plumb sure, in the first place, that the hens is really layin' them aigs what ye don't git?"

Mrs. Gammit stiffened.

"Do I look like an eejut?" she demanded.

"Not one leetle mite, you don't!" assented her host, promptly and cordially.

"I was beginning to think mebbe I did!" persisted the injured lady.

"Everybody knows," protested the woodsman, "as how what you don't know, Mrs. Gammit, ain't hardly wuth knowin'."

"O' course, that's puttin' it a leetle too strong, Mr. Barron," she answered, much mollified. "But I do reckon as how I've got some horse sense. Well, I thought as how them 'ere hens might 'ave stopped layin' on the suddint; so I up an' watched 'em. Land's sakes, but they was alayin' fine. Whenever I kin take time to stan' right by an' watch 'em lay, I git all the aigs I know what to do with. But when I don't watch 'em, clost—nary an aig. Ye ain't agoin' to persuade me a hen kin jest quit layin' when she's a mind ter, waitin' tell ye pass her the compliment o' holdin' out yer hand fer the aig!"

"There's lots o' hens that pervarted they'll turn round an' eat their own aigs!" suggested the woodsman, spitting thoughtfully through the open window. The cat, coiled in the sun on a log outside, sprang up angrily, glared with green eyes at the offending window, and scurried away to cleanse her defiled coat.

"Them's not my poultry!" said Mrs. Gammit with decision. "I thought o' that, too. An' I watched 'em on the sly. But they hain't a one of 'em got no sech onnateral tricks. When they're through layin', they jest hop off an' run away acacklin', as they should." And she shook her head heavily, as one almost despairing of enlightenment. "No, ef ye ain't got no more idees to suggest than that, I might as well be goin'."

"Oh, I was jest kinder clearin' out the underbrush, so's to git a square good look at the situation," explained Barron. "Now, I kin till ye somethin' about it. Firstly, it's a weasel, bein' so sly, an' quick, an' audashus! Ten to one, it's a weasel; an' ye've got to trap it. Secondly, if 'tain't a weasel, it's a fox, an' a mighty cute fox, as ye're goin' to have some trouble in aketchin'. An' thirdly—an' lastly—if 'tain't neither weasel nor fox, it's jest bound to be an extra cunnin' skunk, what's takin' the trouble to be keerful. Generally speakin', skunks ain't keerful, because they don't have to be, nobody wantin' much to fool with 'em. But onc't in a while ye'll come across't one that's as sly as a weasel."

"Oh, 'tain't none o' them!" said Mrs. Gammit, in a tone which conveyed a poor opinion of her host's sagacity and woodcraft. "I've suspicioned the weasels, an' the foxes, an' the woodchucks, but hain't found a sign o' any one of 'em round the place. An' as fer skunks—well, I reckon, I've got a nose on my face." And to emphasize the fact, she sniffed scornfully.

"To be sure! An' a fine, handsome nose it is, Mrs. Gammit!" replied the woodsman, diplomatically. "But what you don't appear to know about skunks is that when they're up to mischief is jest the time when you don't smell 'em. Ye got to bear that in mind!"

Mrs. Gammit looked at him with suspicion.

"Be that reelly so?" demanded she, sternly.

"True's gospel!" answered Barron. "A skunk ain't got no smell unless he's a mind to."

"Well," said she, "I guess it ain't no skunk, anyhow. I kind o' feel it in my bones 'tain't no skunk, smell or no smell."

The woodsman looked puzzled. He had not imagined her capable of such unreasoning obstinacy. He began to wonder if he had overrated her intelligence.

"Then I give it up, Mrs. Gammit," said he, with an air of having lost all interest in the problem.

But that did not suit his visitor at all. Her manner became more conciliatory. Leaning forward, with an almost coaxing look on her face, she murmured—

"I've had an idee as how it might be—mind, I don't say it is, but jest it might be——" and she paused dramatically.

"Might be what?" inquired Barron, with reviving interest.

"Porkypines!" propounded Mrs. Gammit, with a sudden smile of triumph.

Joe Barron neither spoke nor smiled. But in his silence there was something that made Mrs. Gammit uneasy.

"Why not porkypines?" she demanded, her face once more growing severe.

"It might be porkypines as took them aigs o' yourn, Mrs. Gammit, an' it might be bumbly-bees!" responded Barron. "But 'tain't likely!"

Mrs. Gammit snorted at the sarcasm.

"Mebbe," she sneered, "ye kin tell me why it's so impossible it could be porkypines. I seen a big porkypine back o' the barn, only yestiddy. An' that's more'n kin be said o' yer weasels, an' foxes, an' skunks, what ye're so sure about, Mr. Barron."

"A porkypine ain't necessarily after aigs jest because he's back of a barn," said the woodsman. "An' anyways, a porkypine don't eat aigs. He hain't got the right kind o' teeth fer them kind o' vittles. He's got to have something he kin gnaw on, somethin' substantial an' solid—the which he prefers a young branch o' good tough spruce, though it do make his meat kinder strong. No, Mrs. Gammit, it ain't no porkypine what's stealin' yer aigs, take my word fer it. An' the more I think o' it the surer I be that it's a weasel. When a weasel learns to suck aigs, he gits powerful cute. Ye'll have to be right smart, I'm telling ye, to trap him."

During this argument of Barron's his obstinate and offended listener had become quite convinced of the justice of her own conclusions. The sarcasm had settled it. She knew, now, that she had been right all along in her suspicion of the porcupines. And with this certainty her indignation suddenly disappeared. It is such a comfort to be certain. So now, instead of flinging his ignorance in his face, she pretended to be convinced—remembering that she needed his advice as to how to trap the presumptuous porcupine.

"Well, Mr. Barron," said she, with the air of one who would take defeat gracefully, "supposin' ye're right—an' ye'd oughter know—how would ye go about ketchin' them weasels?"

Pleased at this sudden return to sweet reasonableness, the woodsman once more grew interested.

"I reckon we kin fix that!" said he, confidently and cordially. "I'll give ye three of my little mink traps. There's holes, I reckon, under the back an' sides o' the shed, or barn, or wherever it is that the hens have their nests?"

"Nat'rally!" responded Mrs. Gammit. "The thieves ain't agoin' to come in by the front doors, right under my nose, be they?"

"Of course," assented the woodsman. "Well, you jest set them 'ere traps in three o' them holes, well under the sills an' out o' the way. Don't go fer to bait'em, mind, or Mr. Weasel'll git to suspicionin' somethin', right off. Jest sprinkle bits of straw, an' hayseed, an' sech rubbish over 'em, so it all looks no ways out o' the ordinary. You do this right, Mrs. Gammit; an' first thing ye know ye'll have yer thief. I'll git the traps right now, an' show ye how to set 'em."

And as Mrs. Gammit walked away with the three steel traps under her arm, she muttered to herself—

"Yes, Joe Barron, an' I'll show ye the thief. An' he'll have quills on him, sech as no weasel ain't never had on him, I reckon."

On her return, Mrs. Gammit was greeted by the sound of high excitement among the poultry. They were all cackling wildly, and craning their necks to stare into the shed as if they had just seen a ghost there. Mrs. Gammit ran in to discover what all the fuss was about. The place was empty; but a smashed egg lay just outside one of the nests, and a generous tuft of fresh feathers showed her that there had been a tussle of some kind. Indignant but curious, Mrs. Gammit picked up the feathers, and examined them with discriminating eyes to see which hen had suffered the loss.

"Lands sakes!" she exclaimed presently, "ef 'tain't the old rooster! He's made a fight fer that 'ere aig! Lucky he didn't git stuck full o' quills!"

Then, for perhaps the hundredth time, she ran fiercely and noisily behind the barn, in the hope of surprising the enemy. Of course she surprised nothing which Nature had endowed with even the merest apology for eyes and ears; and a cat-bird in the choke-cherry bushes squawked at her derisively. Stealth was one of the things which Mrs. Gammit did not easily achieve. Staring defiantly about her, her eyes fell upon a dark, bunchy creature in the top of an old hemlock at the other side of the fence. Seemingly quite indifferent to her vehement existence, and engrossed in its own affairs, it was crawling out upon a high branch and gnawing, in a casual way, at the young twigs as it went.

"Ah, ha! What did I tell ye? I knowed all along as how it was a porkypine!" exclaimed Mrs. Gammit, triumphantly, as if Joe Barron could hear her across eight miles of woods. Then, as she eyed the imperturbable animal on the limb above her, her face flushed with quick rage, and snatching up a stone about the size of her fist she hurled it at him with all her strength.

In a calmer moment she would never have done this—not because it was rude, but because she had a conviction, based on her own experience, that a stone would hit anything rather than what it was aimed at. And in the present instance she found no reason to change her views on the subject. The stone did not hit the porcupine. It did not, even for one moment, distract his attention from the hemlock twigs. Instead of that, it struck a low branch, on the other side of the tree, and bounced back briskly upon Mrs. Gammit's toes.

With a hoarse squeak of surprise and pain the good lady jumped backwards, and hopped for some seconds on one foot while she gripped the other with both hands. It was a sharp and disconcerting blow. As the pain subsided a concentrated fury took its place. The porcupine was now staring down at her, in mild wonder at her inexplicable gyrations. She glared up at him, and the tufts of grey hair about her sunbonnet seemed to rise and stand rigid.

"Ye think ye're smart!" she muttered through her set teeth. "But I'll fix ye fer that! Jest you wait!" And turning on her heel she stalked back to the house. The big, brown teapot was on the back of the stove, where it had stood since breakfast, with a brew rust-red and bitter-strong enough to tan a moose-hide. Not until she had reheated it and consumed five cups, sweetened with molasses, did she recover any measure of self-complacency.

That same evening, when the last of the sunset was fading in pale violet over the stump pasture and her two cow-bells were tonk-tonking softly along the edge of the dim alder swamp, Mrs. Gammit stealthily placed the traps according to the woodsman's directions. Between the massive logs which formed the foundations of the barn and shed, there were openings numerous enough, and some of them spacious enough, almost, to admit a bear—a very small, emaciated bear. Selecting three of these, which somehow seemed to her fancy particularly adapted to catch a porcupine's taste, she set the traps, tied them, and covered them lightly with fine rubbish so that, as she murmured to herself when all was done, "everythin' looked as nat'ral as nawthin'." Then, when her evening chores were finished, she betook herself to her slumbers, in calm confidence that in the morning she would find one or more porcupines in the trap.

Having a clear conscience and a fine appetite, in spite of the potency of her tea Mrs. Gammit slept soundly. Nevertheless, along toward dawn, in that hour when dream and fact confuse themselves, her nightcapped ears became aware of a strange sound in the yard. She snorted impatiently and sat up in bed. Could some beneficent creature of the night be out there sawing wood for her? It sounded like it. But she rejected the idea at once. Rubbing her eyes with both fists, she crept to the window and looked out.

There was a round moon in the sky, shining over the roof of the barn, and the yard was full of a white, witchy radiance. In the middle of it crouched two big porcupines, gnawing assiduously at a small wooden tub. The noise of their busy teeth on the hard wood rang loud upon the stillness, and a low tonk-a-tonk of cow-bells came from the pasture as the cows lifted their heads to listen.

The tub was a perfectly good tub, and Mrs. Gammit was indignant at seeing it eaten. It had contained salt herrings; and she intended, after getting the flavour of fish scoured out of it, to use it for packing her winter's butter. She did not know that it was for the sake of its salty flavour that the porcupines were gnawing at it, but leaped to the conclusion that their sole object was to annoy and persecute herself.

"Shoo! Shoo!" she cried, snatching off her nightcap and flapping it at them frantically. But the animals were too busy to even look up at her. The only sign they gave of having heard her was to raise their quills straight on end so that their size apparently doubled itself all at once.

Mrs. Gammit felt herself wronged. As she turned and ran downstairs she muttered, "First it's me aigs—an' now it's me little tub—an' Lordy knows what it's goin' to be next!" Then her dauntless spirit flamed up again, and she snapped, "But there ain't agoin' to be no next!" and cast her eyes about her for the broom.

Of course, at this moment, when it was most needed, that usually exemplary article was not where it ought to have been—standing beside the dresser. Having no time to look for it, Mrs. Gammit snatched up the potato-masher, and rushed forth into the moonlight with a gurgling yell, resolved to save the tub.

She was a formidable figure as she charged down the yard, and at ordinary times the porcupines might have given way. But when a porcupine has found something it really likes to eat, its courage is superb. These two porcupines found the herring-tub delicious beyond anything they had ever tasted. Reluctantly they stopped gnawing for a moment, and turned their little twinkling eyes upon Mrs. Gammit in sullen defiance.

Now this was by no means what she had expected, and the ferocity of her attack slackened. Had it been a lynx, or even a bear, her courage would probably not have failed her. Had it been a man, a desperado with knife in hand and murder in his eyes, she would have flown upon him in contemptuous fury. But porcupines were different. They were mysterious to her. She believed firmly that they could shoot their quills, like arrows, to a distance of ten feet. She had a swift vision of herself stuck full of quills, like a pincushion. At a distance of eleven feet she stopped abruptly, and hurled the potato-masher with a deadly energy which carried it clean over the barn. Then the porcupines resumed their feasting, while she stared at them helplessly. Two large tears of rage brimmed her eyes, and rolled down her battered cheeks; and backing off a few paces she sat down upon the saw-horse to consider the situation.

But never would Mrs. Gammit have been what she was had she been capable of acknowledging defeat. In a very few moments her resourceful wits reasserted themselves.

"Queer!" she mused. "One don't never kinder seem to hit what one aims at! But one always hits somethin'! Leastways, I do! If I jest fling enough things, an' keep on aflingin', I might hit a porkypine jest as well as anything else. There ain't nawthin' onnateral about a porkypine, to keep one from hitt'n' him, I reckon."

The wood-pile was close by; and the wood, which she had sawed and split for the kitchen stove, was of just the handy size. She was careful, now, not to take aim, but imagined herself anxious to establish a new wood-pile, in haste, just about where that sound of insolent gnawing was disturbing the night. In a moment a shower of sizable firewood was dropping all about the herring-tub.

The effect was instantaneous. The gnawing stopped, and the porcupines glanced about uneasily. A stick fell plump upon the bottom of the tub, staving it in. The porcupines backed away and eyed it with grieved suspicion. Another stick struck it on the side, so that it bounced like a jumping, live thing, and hit one of the porcupines sharply, rolling him over on his back. Instantly his valiant quills went down quite flat; and as he wriggled to his feet with a squeak of alarm, he looked all at once little and lean and dark, like a wet hen. Mrs. Gammit smiled grimly.

"Ye ain't feelin' quite so sassy now, be ye?" she muttered; and the sticks flew the faster from her energetic hands. Not many of them, to be sure, went at all in the direction she wished, but enough were dropping about the herring-tub to make the porcupines remember that they had business elsewhere. The one that had been struck had no longer any regard for his dignity, but made himself as small as possible and scurried off like a scared rat. The other, unvanquished but indignant, withdrew slowly, with every quill on end. The sticks fell all about him; but Mrs. Gammit, in the excitement of her triumph, was now forgetting herself so far as to take aim, therefore never a missile touched him. And presently, without haste, he disappeared behind the barn.

With something almost like admiration Mrs. Gammit eyed his departure.

"Well, seein' as I hain't scairt ye much," she muttered dryly, "mebbe ye'll obleege me by coming back an' gittin' into my trap. But ye ain't agoin' to hev no more o' my good herrin'-tub, ye ain't." And she strode down the yard to get the tub. It was no longer a good tub, for the porcupines had gnawed two big holes in the sides, and Mrs. Gammit's own missiles had broken in the bottom. But she obstinately bore the poor relics into the kitchen. Firewood they might become, but not food for the enemy.

No more that night was the good woman's sleep disturbed, and she slept later than usual. As she was getting up, conscience-stricken at the sound of the cows in the pasture lowing to be milked, she heard a squawking and fluttering under the barn, and rushed out half dressed to see what was the matter. She had no doubt that one of the audacious porcupines had got himself into a trap.

But no, it was neither porcupine, fox, nor weasel. To her consternation, it was her old red top-knot hen, which now lay flat upon the trap, with outstretched wings, exhausted by its convulsive floppings. She picked it up, loosed the deadly grip upon its leg, and slammed the offending trap across the barn with such violence that it bounced up and fell into the swill-barrel. Her feelings thus a little relieved, she examined Red Top-knot's leg with care. It was hopelessly shattered and mangled.

"Ye cain't never scratch with that ag'in, ye cain't!" muttered Mrs. Gammit, compassionately. "Poor dear, ther ain't nawthin' fer it but to make vittles of ye now! Too bad! Too bad! Ye was always sech a fine layer an' a right smart setter!" And carrying the victim to the block on which she was wont to split kindling wood, she gently but firmly chopped her head off.

Half an hour later, as Mrs. Gammit returned from the pasture with a brimming pail of milk, again she heard a commotion under the barn. But she would not hurry, lest she should spill the milk. "Whatever it be, it'll be there when I git there!" she muttered philosophically; and kept on to the cool cellar with her milk. But as soon as she had deposited the pail she turned and fairly ran in her eagerness. The speckled hen was cackling vain-gloriously; and as Mrs. Gammit passed the row of nests in the shed she saw a white egg shining. But she did not stop to secure it.

As she entered the barn, a little yellowish brown animal, with a sharp, triangular nose and savage eyes like drops of fire, ran at her with such fury that for an instant she drew back. Then, with a roar of indignation at its audacity, she rushed forward and kicked at it. The kick struck empty air; but the substantial dimensions of the foot seemed to daunt the daring little beast, and it slipped away like a darting flame beneath the sill of the barn. The next moment, as she stooped to look at the nearest of the two traps, another slim yellow creature, larger than the first, leaped up, with a vicious cry, and almost reached her face. But, fortunately for her, it was held fast by both hind legs in the trap, and fell back impotent.

Startled and enraged, Mrs. Gammit kicked at it, where it lay darting and twisting like a snake. Naturally, she missed it; but it did not miss her. With unerring aim it caught the toe of her heavy cowhide shoe, and fixed its teeth in the tough leather. Utterly taken by surprise, Mrs. Gammit tried to jump backwards. But instead of that, she fell flat on her back, with a yell. Her sturdy heels flew up in the air, while her petticoats flopped back in her face, bewildering her. The weasel, however, had maintained his dogged grip upon the toe of her shoe; so something had to give. That something was the cord which anchored the trap. It broke under the sudden strain. Trap and weasel together went flying over Mrs. Gammit's prostrate head. They brought up with a stupefying slam against the wall of the pig-pen, making the pig squeal apprehensively.

Disconcerted and mortified, Mrs. Gammit scrambled to her feet, shook her petticoats into shape, and glanced about to see if the wilderness in general had observed her indiscretion. Apparently, nothing had noticed it. Then, with an air of relief, she glanced down at her vicious little antagonist. The weasel lay stunned, apparently dead. But she was not going to trust appearances. Picking trap and victim up together, on the end of a pitchfork, she carried them out and dropped them into the barrel of rain water at the corner of the house. Half-revived by the shock, the yellow body wriggled for a moment or two at the bottom of the barrel. As she watched it, a doubt passed through Mrs. Gammit's mind. Could Joe Barron have been right? Was it weasels, after all, that were taking her eggs? But she dismissed the idea at once. Joe Barron didn't know everything! And there, indisputably, were the porcupines, bothering her all the time, with unheard-of impudence. Weasels, indeed!

"'Twa'n't you I was after," she muttered obstinately, apostrophizing the now motionless form in the rain-barrel. "It was them dratted porkypines, as comes after my aigs. But ye're a bad lot, too, an' I'm right glad to have got ye where ye won't be up to no mischief."

All athrill with excitement, Mrs. Gammit hurried through her morning's chores, and allowed herself no breakfast except half a dozen violent cups of tea "with sweetenin'." Then, satisfied that the weasel in the rain-barrel was by this time securely and permanently dead, she fished it out, and reset the trap in its place under the barn. The other trap she discovered in the swill-barrel, after a long search. Relieved to find it unbroken, she cleaned it carefully and put it away to be returned, in due time, to its owner. She would not set it again—and, indeed, she would have liked to smash it to bits, as a sacrifice to the memory of poor Red Top-knot.

"I hain't got no manner o' use fer a porkypine trap what'll go out o' its way to ketch hens," she grumbled.

The silent summer forenoon, after this, wore away without event. Mrs. Gammit, working in her garden behind the house, with the hot, sweet scent of the flowering buckwheat-field in her nostrils and the drowsy hum of bees in her ears, would throw down her hoe about once in every half-hour and run into the barn to look hopefully at the traps. But nothing came to disturb them. Neither did anything come to disturb the hens, who attended so well to business that at noon Mrs. Gammit had seven fresh eggs to carry in. When night came, and neither weasels nor porcupines had given any further sign of their existence, Mrs. Gammit was puzzled. She was one of those impetuous women who expect everything to happen all at once. When milking was over, and her solitary, congenial supper, she sat down on the kitchen doorstep and considered the situation very carefully.

What she had set herself out to do, after the interview with Joe Barron, was to catch a porcupine in one of his traps, and thus, according to her peculiar method of reasoning, convince the confident woodsman that porcupines did eat eggs! As for the episode of the weasel, she resolved that she would not say anything to him about it, lest he should twist it into a confirmation of his own views. As for those seven eggs, so happily spared to her, she argued that the capture of the weasel, with all its attendant excitement, had served as a warning to the porcupines and put them on their guard. Well, she would give them something else to think about. She was now all impatience, and felt unwilling to await the developments of the morrow, which, after all, might refuse to develop! With a sudden resolution she arose, fetched the gnawed and battered remains of the herring-tub from their concealment behind the kitchen door, and propped them up against the side of the house, directly beneath her bedroom window.

At first her purpose in this was not quite clear to herself. But the memory of her triumph of the previous night was tingling in her veins, and she only knew she wanted to lure the porcupines back, that she might do something to them. And first, being a woman, that something occurred to her in connexion with hot water. How conclusive it would be to wait till the porcupines were absorbed in their consumption of the herring-tub, and then pour scalding water down upon them. After all, it was more important that she should vanquish her enemies than prove to a mere man that they really were her enemies. What did she care, anyway, what that Joe Barron thought? Then, once more, a doubt assailed her. What if he were right? Not that she would admit it, for one moment. But just supposing! Was she going to pour hot water on those porcupines, and scald all the bristles off their backs, if they really didn't come after her eggs? Mrs. Gammit was essentially just and kind-hearted, and she came to the conclusion that the scheme might be too cruel.

"Ef it be you uns as takes the aigs," she murmured thoughtfully, "a kittle o' bilin' water to yer backs ain't none too bad fer ye! But ef it be only my old herrin'-tub ye're after, then bilin' water's too ha'sh!"

In the end, the weapon she decided upon was the big tin pepper-pot, well loaded.

Through the twilight, while the yard was all in shadow, Mrs. Gammit sat patient and motionless beside her open window. The moon rose, seeming to climb with effort out of the tangle of far-off treetops. The faint, rhythmic breathing of the wilderness, which, to the sensitive ear, never ceases even in the most profound calm, took on the night change, the whisper of mystery, the furtive suggestion of menace which the daylight lacks. Sitting there in ambush, Mrs. Gammit felt it all, and her eager face grew still and pale and solemn like a statue's. The moonlight crept down the roofs of the barn and shed and house, then down the walls, till only the ground was in shadow. And at last, through this lower stratum of obscurity, Mrs. Gammit saw two squat, sturdy shapes approaching leisurely from behind the barn.

She held her breath. Yes, it was undoubtedly the porcupines. Undaunted by the memory of their previous discomfiture, they came straight across the yard, and up to the house, and fell at once to their feasting on the herring-tub. The noise of their enthusiastic gnawing echoed strangely across the attentive air.

Very gently, with almost imperceptible motion, Mrs. Gammit slid her right hand, armed with the pepper-pot, over the edge of the window-sill. The porcupines, enraptured with the flavour of the herring-tub, never looked up. Mrs. Gammit was just about to turn the pepper-pot over, when she saw a third dim shape approaching, and stayed her hand. It was bigger than a porcupine. She kept very still, breathing noiselessly through parted lips. Then the moonlight reached the ground, the shadows vanished, and she saw a big wildcat stealing up to find out what the porcupines were eating.

Seeing the feasters so confident and noisy, yet undisturbed, the usually cautious wildcat seemed to think there could be no danger near. Had Mrs. Gammit stirred a muscle, he would have marked her; but in her movelessness her head and hand passed for some harmless natural phenomenon. The wildcat crept softly up, and as he drew near, the porcupines raised their quills threateningly, till nothing could be seen of their bodies but their blunt snouts still busy on the herring-tub. At a distance of about six feet the big cat stopped, and crouched, glaring with wide, pale eyes, and sniffing eagerly. Mrs. Gammit was amazed that the porcupines did not at once discharge a volley at him and fill him full of quills for his intrusion.

The wildcat knew too much about porcupines to dream of attacking them. It was what they were eating that interested him. They seemed to enjoy it so much. He crept a few inches nearer, and caught a whiff of the herring-tub. Yes, it was certainly fish. A true cat, he doted on fish, even salt fish. He made another cautious advance, hoping that the porcupines might retire discreetly. But instead of that they merely stopped gnawing, put their noses between their forelegs, squatted flat, and presented an unbroken array of needle points to his dangerous approach.

The big cat stopped, quite baffled, his little short tail, not more than three inches long, twitching with anger. He could not see that the tub was empty; but he could smell it, and he drew in his breath with noisy sniffling. It filled him with rage to be so baffled; for he knew it would be fatal to go any nearer, and so expose himself to a deadly slap from the armed tails of the porcupines.

Just what he would have attempted, however, in his eagerness, will never be known. For at this point, Mrs. Gammit's impatience overcame her curiosity. With a gentle motion of her wrist she turned the pepper-pot over, and softly shook it. The eyes of the wildcat were fixed upon that wonderful, unattainable herring-tub, and he saw nothing else. But Mrs. Gammit in the vivid moonlight saw a fine cloud of pepper sinking downwards slowly on the moveless air.

Suddenly the wildcat pawed at his nose, drew back, and grew rigid with what seemed an effort to restrain some deep emotion. The next moment he gave vent to a loud, convulsive sneeze, and began to spit savagely. He appeared to be not only very angry, but surprised as well. When he fell to clawing frantically at his eyes and nose with both paws, Mrs. Gammit almost strangled with the effort to keep from laughing. But she held herself in, and continued to shake down the pungent shower. A moment more, and the wildcat, after an explosion of sneezes which almost made him stand on his head, gave utterance to a yowl of consternation, and turned to flee. As he bounded across the yard he evidently did not see just where he was going, for he ran head first into the wheelbarrow, which straightway upset and kicked him. For an instant he clawed at it wildly, mistaking it for a living assailant. Then he recovered his wits a little, and scurried away across the pasture, sneezing and spitting as he went.

Meanwhile the porcupines, with their noses to the ground and their eyes covered, had been escaping the insidious attack of the pepper. But at last it reached them. Mrs. Gammit saw a curious shiver pass over the array of quills.

Now it was contrary to all the most rigid laws of the porcupine kind to uncoil themselves in the face of danger. At the same time, it was impossible to sneeze in so constrained an attitude. Their effort was heroic, but self-control at last gave way. As it were with a snap, one of the globes of quills straightened itself out, and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed. Then the other went through the same spasmodic process, while Mrs. Gammit, leaning halfway out of the window, squealed and choked with delight. But the porcupines were obstinate, and would not run away. Very slowly they turned and retired down the yard, halting every few feet to sneeze. With tears streaming down her cheeks Mrs. Gammit watched their retreat, till suddenly some of the vagrant pepper was wafted back to her own nostrils, and she herself was shaken with a mighty sneeze. This checked her mirth on the instant. Her face grew grave, and drawing back with a mortified air she slammed the window down.

"Might 'a' knowed I'd be aketchin' cold," she muttered, "settin' in a draught this time o' night."

Not until she had thoroughly mastered the tickling in her nostrils did she glance forth again. Then the porcupines were gone, and not even an echo of their far-off sneezes reached her ears.

In the days that followed, neither weasel, wildcat, nor porcupine came to Mrs. Gammit's clearing, and the daily harvest of strictly fresh eggs was unfailing. At the end of a week, the good lady felt justified in returning the traps to Joe Barron, and letting him know how mistaken he had been.

"There, Mr. Barron," said she, handing him the three traps, "I'm obleeged to you, an' there's yer traps. But there's one of 'em ain't no good."

"Which one be it?" asked the woodsman as he took them.

"I've marked it with a bit of string," replied Mrs. Gammit.

"What's the matter with it? I don't see nawthin' wrong with it!" said Barron, examining it critically.

"Tain't no good! You take my word fer it! That's all I've got to say!" persisted Mrs. Gammit.

"Oh, well, seem' as it's you sez so, Mrs. Gammit, that's enough," agreed the woodsman, civilly. "But the other is all right, eh? What did they ketch?"

"Well, they ketched a big weasel!" said Mrs. Gammit, eyeing him with challenge.

A broad smile went over Barron's face.

"I knowed it," he exclaimed. "I knowed as how it was a weasel."

"An' I knowed as how ye'd say jest them very words," retorted Mrs. Gammit. "But ye don't know everythin', Joe Barron. It wa'n't no weasel as was takin' them there aigs!"

"What were it then?" demanded the woodsman, incredulously.

"It was two big porkypines an' a monstrous big wildcat," answered Mrs. Gammit in triumph.

"Did ye ketch 'em at it?" asked the woodsman, with a faint note of sarcasm in his voice. But the sarcasm glanced off Mrs. Gammit's armour. She regarded the question as a quite legitimate one.

"No, I kain't say as I did, exackly," she replied. "But they come anosin' round, an' to teach 'em a lesson to keep ther noses out o' other people's hens' nests I shook a little pepper over 'em. I tell ye, they took to the woods, asneezin' that bad I thought ye might 'a' heard 'em all the way over here. Ye'd 'ave bust yerself laffin', ef ye could 'a' seed 'em rootin'. An' since then, Mr. Barron, I git all the aigs I want. Don't ye talk to me o' weasels—the skinny little rats. They ain't wuth noticin', no more'n a chipmunk."



The Battle in the Mist

In the silver-grey between dawn and sunrise the river was filled with mist from bank to bank. It coiled and writhed and rolled, here thinning, there thickening, as if breathed upon irregularly by innumerable unseen mouths. But there was no wind astir; and the brown-black, glistening current beneath the white folds was glassy smooth save where the occasional big swirls boiled up with a swishing gurgle, or the running wave broke musically around an upthrust shoulder of rock or a weedy snag. The river was not wide—not more than fifty yards from bank to bank; but from the birch canoe slipping quietly down along one shore, just outside the fringe of alder branches, the opposite shore was absolutely hidden. There was nothing to indicate that an opposite shore existed, save that now and again the dark top of a soaring pine or elm would show dimly for a moment, seeming to float above the ghostly gulfs of mist.

The canoe kept close along the shore for guidance, as one feels one's way along a wall in the dark. The channel, moreover, was deep and clear in shore; while out under the mist the soft noises of ripples proclaimed to the ears of the two canoeists the presence of frequent rock and snag and shallow. Lest they should run upon unseen dangers ahead, the canoeists were travelling very slowly, the bow-man resting with his paddle across the gunwales before him, while the stern-man, his paddle noiselessly waving like the fin of a trout, did no more than keep his craft to her course and let her run with the current.

Down along the shore, keeping just behind the canoe and close to the water's edge, followed a small, dark, sinuous creature, its piercing eyes, bead-black with a glint of red behind them, fixed in savage curiosity upon the canoemen. It was about two feet in length, with extremely short legs, and a sharp, triangular head. As it ran—and its movements were as soundless and effortless as those of a snake—it humped its long, lithe body in a way that suggested a snake's coils. It seemed to be following the canoe out of sheer curiosity—a curiosity, however, which was probably well mixed with malevolence, seeing that it was the curiosity of a mink. These two strange creatures moving on the water were, of course, too large and formidable for the big mink to dream of attacking them; but he could wonder at them and hate them—and who could say that some chance to do them a hurt might not arise? Stealthy, wary, and bold, he kept his distance about eight or ten feet from the canoe; and because he was behind he imagined himself unseen. As a matter of fact, however, the steersman of the canoe, wiser in woodcraft and cunninger even than he, had detected him and was watching him with interest from the corner of his eye. So large a mink, and one so daring in curiosity, was a phenomenon to be watched and studied with care. The canoeist did not take his comrade in the bow into his confidence for some minutes, lest the sound of the human voice should daunt the animal. But presently, in a monotonous, rhythmic murmur which carried no alarm to the mink's ear but only heightened its interest, he called the situation to his companion's notice; and the latter, without seeming to see, kept watch through half-closed lids.

A little way down the shore, close to the water's edge, something round and white caught the mink's eye. Against the soft browns and dark greys of the wet soil, the object fairly shone in its whiteness, and seemed absurdly out of place. It was a hen's egg, either dropped there by a careless hen from the pioneer's cabin near by, or left by a musk-rat disturbed in his poaching. However it had got there, it was an egg; and the canoeists saw that they no longer held the mink's undivided attention. Gently the steersman sheered out a few feet farther from the bank, and at the same time checked the canoe's headway. He wanted to see how the mink would manipulate the egg when he got to it.

The egg lay at the foot of a little path which led down the bushy bank to the water—a path evidently trodden by the pioneer's cattle. Down this path, stepping daintily and turning his long inquisitive nose and big, bright, mischievous eyes from side to side, came a raccoon. He was a small raccoon, a little shorter than the mink, but looking heavier by reason of his more stocky build and bushier, looser fur. His purpose was to fish or hunt frogs in the pool at the foot of the path; but when he saw the egg gleaming through the misty air, his eyes sparkled with satisfaction. A long summer passed in proximity to the pioneer's cabin had enabled him to find out that eggs were good. He hastened his steps, and with a sliding scramble, which attracted the attention of the men in the canoe, he arrived at the water's edge. But to his indignant astonishment he was not the first to arrive.

The mink was just ahead. He reached the egg, laid one paw upon it in possession, and turned with a snarl of defiance as the raccoon came down the bank. The latter paused to note the threatening fangs and malign eyes of his slim rival. Then, with that brisk gaiety which the raccoon carries into the most serious affairs of his life, and particularly into his battles, he ran to the encounter. The men in the canoe, eagerly interested, stole nearer to referee the match.

Quick as the raccoon was, his snake-like adversary was quicker. Doubling back upon himself, the mink avoided that confident and dangerous rush, and with a lightning snap fixed hold upon his enemy's neck. But it was not, by half an inch, the hold he wanted; and his long, deadly teeth sank not, as he had planned, into the foe's throat, but into the great tough muscles a little higher up. He dared not let go to try for the deadlier hold, but locked his jaws and whipped his long body over the other's back, hoping to evade his antagonist's teeth.

The raccoon had lost the first point, and his large eyes blazed with pain and anger. But his dauntless spirit was not in the least dismayed. Shaking the long, black body from his back, he swung himself half round and caught his enemy's slim loins between his jaws. It was a cruelly punishing grip, and under the stress of it the mink lashed out so violently that the two, still holding on with locked jaws, rolled over into the water, smashing the egg as they fell. The canoe, now close beside them, they heeded not at all.

"Two to one on the mink!" whispered the traveller in the bow of the canoe, delightedly. But the steersman smiled, and said "Wait!"

To be in the water suited the mink well enough. A hunter of fish in their holes, he was almost as much at home in the water as a fish. But the raccoon it did not suit at all. With a splutter he relinquished his hold on the mink's loins; and the latter, perceiving the advantage, let go and snapped again for the throat. But again he miscalculated the alertness of the raccoon's sturdy muscles. The latter had turned his head the instant that the mink's jaws relaxed, and the two gnashed teeth in each other's faces, neither securing a hold. The next moment the raccoon had leaped back to dry land, turning in threatening readiness as he did so.

Though there was no longer anything to fight about, the mink's blood was up. His eyes glowed like red coals, his long, black shape looked very fit and dangerous, and his whole appearance was that of vindictive fury. The raccoon, on the other hand, though bedraggled from his ducking, maintained his gay, casual air, as if enjoying the whole affair too much to be thoroughly enraged. When the mink darted upon him, straight as a snake strikes, he met the attack with a curious little pirouette; and the next instant the two were once more locked in a death grapple.

It was some moments before the breathless watchers in the canoe could make out which was getting the advantage, so closely were the grey body and the black intertwined. Then it was seen that the raccoon was using his flexible, hand-like paws as a bear might, to hold his foe down to the punishment. Both contestants were much cut, and bleeding freely; but the mink was now getting slow, while the raccoon was as cheerfully alert as ever. At length the mink tore loose and made one more desperate reach for his favourite throat-hold. But this time it was the raccoon who avoided. He danced aside, flashed back, and caught the mink fairly under the jaw. Then, bracing himself, he shook his foe as a terrier might. And in a minute or two the long, black shape straightened out limply amid the sand and dead leaves.

When the body was quite still the raccoon let go and stood over it expectantly for some minutes. He bit it several times, and seeing that this treatment elicited no retort, suffered himself to feel assured of his victory. Highly pleased, he skipped back and forth over the body, playfully seized it with his fore-paws, and bundled it up into a heap. Then seeming to remember the origin of the quarrel, he sniffed regretfully at the crumbled fragments of egg-shell. His expression of disappointment was so ludicrous that in spite of themselves the men in the canoe exploded with laughter.

As the harsh, incongruous sound startled the white stillnesses, in the lifting of an eyelid the little conqueror vanished. One of the canoeists stepped ashore, picked up the body of the slain mink, and threw it into the canoe. As the two resumed their paddles and slipped away into the mist, they knew that from some hiding-place on the bank two bright, indignant eyes were peering after them in wonder.



Melindy and the Spring Bear

Soft, wet and tender, with a faint green filming the sodden pasture field, and a rose-pink veil covering the maples, and blue-grey catkins tinting the dark alders, spring had come to the lonely little clearing in the backwoods. From the swampy meadow along the brook's edge, across the road from the cabin and the straw-littered barn-yard, came toward evening that music which is the distinctive note of the northern spring—the thrilling, mellow, inexpressibly wistful fluting of the frogs.

The sun was just withdrawing his uppermost rim behind the far-off black horizon line of fir-tops. The cabin door stood wide open to admit the sweet air and the sweet sound. Just inside the door sat old Mrs. Griffis, rocking heavily, while the woollen sock which she was knitting lay forgotten in her lap. She was a strong-featured, muscular woman, still full of vigour, whom rheumatism had met and halted in the busy path of life. Her keen and restless eyes were following eagerly every movement of a slender, light-haired girl in a blue cotton waist and grey homespun skirt, who was busy at the other side of the yard, getting her little flock of sheep penned up for the night for fear of wild prowlers.

Presently the girl slammed the pen door, jammed the hardwood peg into the staple, ran her fingers nervously through the pale fluff of her hair, and came hurrying across the yard to the door with a smile on her delicate young face.

"There, Granny!" she exclaimed, with the air of one who has just got a number of troublesome little duties accomplished, "I guess no lynxes, or nothing, 'll get the sheep to-night, anyways. Now, I must go an' hunt up old 'Spotty' afore it gets too dark. I don't see what's made her wander off to-day. She always sticks around the barn close as a burr!"

The old woman smiled, knowing that the survival of a wild instinct in the cow had led her to seek some hiding-place, near home but secluded, wherein to secrete her new-born calf.

"I guess old 'Spotty' knows enough to come home when she gets ready, Child!" she answered. "She's been kept that close all winter, the snow bein' so deep, I don't wonder she wants to roam a bit now she can git 'round. Land sakes, I wish't I could roam a bit, 'stead er sittin', sittin', an' knittin', knittin', mornin', noon an' night, all along of these 'ere useless old legs of mine!"

"Poor Granny!" murmured the girl, softly, tears coming into her eyes. "I wish't we could get 'round, the two of us, in these sweet-smellin' spring woods, an' get the first Mayflowers together! Couldn't you just try now, Granny? I believe you are goin' to walk all right again some day, just as well as any of us. Do try!"

Thus adjured, the old woman grasped the arms of her chair sturdily, set her jaw, and lifted herself quite upright. But a groan forced itself from her lips, and she sank back heavily, her face creased with pain. Recovering herself with a resolute effort, however, she smiled rather ruefully.

"Some day, mebbe, if the good Lord wills!" said she, shaking her head. "But 'tain't this day, Melindy! You'll be the death o' me yet, Child, you're so set on me gittin' 'round ag'in!"

"Why, Granny, you did splendid!" cried the girl. "That was the best yet, the best you've ever done since I come to you. You stood just as straight as anybody for a minute. Now, I'll go an' hunt old 'Spotty.'" And she turned toward the tiny path that led across the pasture to the burnt-woods.

But Mrs. Griffis's voice detained her.

"What's the good o' botherin' about old 'Spotty' to-night, Melindy? Let her have her fling. Them frogs make me that lonesome to-night I can't bear to let ye a minnit out o' my sight, Child! Ther' ain't no other sound like it, to my way o' thinkin', for music nor for lonesomeness. It 'most breaks my heart with the sweetness of it, risin' an' fallin' on the wet twilight that way. But I just got to have somebody 'round when I listen to it!"

"Yes, Granny, I love it, too!" assented Melindy in a preoccupied tone, "when I ain't too bothered to listen. Just now, I'm thinkin' about old 'Spotty' out there alone in the woods, an' maybe some hungry lynxes watchin' for her to lie down an' go to sleep. You know how hungry the bears will be this spring, too, Granny, after the snow layin' deep so late. I just couldn't sleep, if I thought old 'Spotty' was out there in them queer, grey, empty woods all night. In summer it's different, an' then the woods are like home."

"Well," said her grandmother, seeing that the girl was bent upon her purpose, "if ye're skeered for old 'Spotty,' ye'd better be a little mite skeered for yerself, Child! Take along the gun. Mebbe ye might see a chipmunk a-bitin' the old cow jest awful!"

Heedless of her grandmother's gibe, Melindy, who had a very practical brain under her fluffy light hair, picked up the handy little axe which she used for chopping kindling.

"No guns for me, Granny, you know," she retorted. "This 'ere little axe's good enough for me!" And swinging it over her shoulder she went lightly up the path, her head to one side, her small mouth puckered in a vain effort to learn to whistle.

What Melindy and her grandmother called the "Burnt Lands" was a strip of country running back for miles from the clearing. The fire had gone over it years before, cutting a sharply defined, gradually widening path through the forest, and leaving behind it only a few scattered rampikes, or tall, naked trunks bleached to whiteness by the storms of many winters. Here and there amid these desolate spaces, dense thickets of low growth had sprung up, making a secure hiding-place of every hollow where the soil had not had all the life scorched out of it.

Having crossed the pasture, Melindy presently detected those faint indications of a trail which the uninitiated eye finds it so impossible to see. Slight bendings and bruises of the blueberry and laurel scrub caught her notice. Then she found, in a bare spot, the unmistakable print of a cow's hoof. The trail was now quite clear to her; and it was clearly that of old "Spotty." Intent upon her quest she hurried on, heedless of the tender colours changing in the sky above her head, of the first swallows flitting and twittering across it, of the keen yet delicate fragrance escaping from every sap-swollen bud, and of the sweetly persuasive piping of the frogs from the water meadow. She had no thought at that moment but to find the truant cow and get her safely stabled before dark.

The trail led directly to a rocky hollow about a hundred yards from the edge of the pasture—perhaps a hundred and fifty yards from the doorway wherein Mrs. Griffis sat intently watching Melindy's progress. The hollow was thick with young spruce and white birch, clustered about a single tall and massive rampike.

Into this shadowy tangle the girl pushed fearlessly, peering ahead beneath the dark, balsam-scented branches. She could see, in a broken fashion, to the very foot of the rampike, across which lay a huge fallen trunk. But she could see nothing of old "Spotty," who, by reason of her vivid colouring of red and white splotches, would have been conspicuous against those dark surroundings.

There was something in the silence, combined with the absence of the cow whom she confidently expected to find, which sent a little chill to the girl's heart. She gripped her axe more tightly, and stood quite motionless, accustoming her eyes to the confused gloom; and presently she thought she could distinguish a small brownish shape lying on a mound of moss near the foot of the rampike. A moment more and she could see that it was looking at her, with big, soft eyes. Then a pair of big ears moved. She realized that it was a calf she was looking at. Old "Spotty's" truancy was accounted for.

But where was old "Spotty"? Melindy thought for a moment, and concluded very properly that the mother, considering the calf well-hidden, had slipped away to the spring for a drink. She was on the point of stepping forward to admire the little new-comer and see if it was yet strong enough to be led home to the barn, when a stealthy rustling at the farther side of the thicket arrested her.

Certainly that could not be the cow, who was anything but stealthy in her movements. But what could it be?

Melindy had a sudden prescience of peril. But her nerves stiffened to it, and she had no thought of retreat. It might be one of those savage lynxes, spying upon the calf in its mother's absence. At this idea Melindy's small mouth itself set very grimly, and she rejoiced that she had brought the axe along. The lynx, of all the wild creatures, she regarded with special antagonism.

The stealthy movements came nearer, nearer, then suddenly died out. A moment more and a dark bulk took shape noiselessly among the fir-branches, some ten or twelve feet beyond the spot where the helpless calf was lying.

For a second Melindy's heart stood still. What was her little axe against a bear! Then she recalled the general backwoods faith that the biggest black bear would run from a human being, if only he had plenty of room to run. She looked at the helpless little one curled up on its mossy bed. She looked at the savage black shape gliding slowly forward to devour it. And her heart leaped with returning courage.

The bear, its fierce eyes glancing from side to side, was now within five or six feet of its intended prey. With a shrill cry of warning and defiance Melindy sprang forward, swinging her axe, and ordered the beast to "Git out!" She was greatly in hopes that the animal would yield to the authority of the human voice, and retire abashed.

At any other season, it is probable that the bear would have done just as she hoped it would. But now, it had the courage of a rampant spring appetite. Startled it was, and disturbed, at the girl's sudden appearance and her shrill cry; and it half drew back, hesitating. But Melindy also hesitated; and the bear was quick to perceive her hesitation. For a few seconds he stood eyeing her, his head down and swinging from side to side. Then, seeming to conclude that she was not a formidable antagonist, he gave vent to a loud, grunting growl, and lurched forward upon the calf.

With a wild scream, half of fury, half of fear, Melindy also darted forward, trusting that the animal would not really face her onslaught. And the calf, terrified at the sudden outcry, staggered to its feet with a loud bleating.

The bear was just upon it, with great black paw uplifted for the fatal stroke that would have broken its back, when he saw Melindy's axe descending. With the speed of a skilled boxer he changed the direction of his stroke, and fended off the blow so cleverly that the axe almost flew from the girl's grasp. The fine edge, however, caught a partial hold, and cleft the paw to the bone.

Furious with the pain, and his fighting blood now thoroughly aroused, the bear forgot the calf and sprang at his daring assailant. Light-footed as a cat, the girl leapt aside, just in time, darted over the fallen trunk, and dodged around the base of the rampike. She realized that she had undertaken too much, and her only hope now was that either she would be able to outrun the bear, or that the latter would turn his attentions again to the calf and forget about her.

The bear, however, had no intention of letting her escape his vengeance. For all his bulk, he was amazingly nimble and was at her heels again in a second. Though she might have outstripped him in the open, he would probably have caught her in the hampering thicket; but at this crucial moment there came a bellow and a crashing of branches close behind him, and he whirled about just in time to receive the raging charge of old "Spotty," who had heard her youngster's call.

The bear had no time to dodge or fend this onslaught, but only to brace himself. The cow's horns, unfortunately, were short and wide-spreading. She caught him full in the chest, with the force of a battering-ram, and would have hurled him backwards but that his mighty claws and forearms, at the same instant, secured a deadly clutch upon her shoulders. She bore him backward against the trunk indeed, but there he recovered himself; and when she strove to withdraw for another battering charge, she could not tear herself free. Foiled in these tactics, she lunged forward with all her strength, again and again, bellowing madly, and endeavouring to crush out her enemy's breath against the tree. And the bear, grunting, growling, and whining, held her fast while he tore at her with his deadly claws.

Too much excited to think any longer of flight, Melindy stood upon the fallen trunk and breathlessly watched the battle. In a few moments she realized that old "Spotty" was getting the worst of it; and upon this her courage once more returned. Running down the great log as close as she dared, she swung up her axe, and paused for an opening. She was just about to strike, when a well-known voice arrested her, and she jumped back.

"Git out of the way, Child," it commanded, piercing the turmoil. "Git out of the way an' let me shoot!"

The crippled old woman, too, had heard the cry of her young. When that scream of Melindy's cleft the evening air, Mrs. Griffis had shot out of her chair as if she had never heard of rheumatism. She did not know anything hurt her. At the summons of this imperious need her old vigour all came back. Snatching up the big duck-gun from the corner, where it stood always loaded and ready, she went across the pasture and through the laurel patches at a pace almost worthy of Melindy herself. When she plunged through the bushes into the hollow, and saw the situation, her iron will steadied her nerves to meet the crisis.

The instant Melindy had jumped out of the way Mrs. Griffis ran close up to the combatants. The bear was being kept too busy to spare her any attention whatever. Coolly setting the muzzle of the big gun (which was loaded with buckshot) close to the beast's side, just behind the fore-shoulder, she pulled the trigger. There was a roar that filled the hollow like the firing of a cannon, and the bear collapsed sprawling, with a great hole blown through his heart.

Old "Spotty" drew back astonished, snorted noisily, and rolled wild eyes upon her mistress. Then, unable to believe that her late foe was really no longer a menace to her precious calf, she fell once more upon the lifeless form and tried to beat it out of all likeness to a bear. The calf, who had been knocked over but not hurt in the bear's charge upon Melindy, had struggled to its feet again; and Mrs. Griffis pushed it forward to attract its mother's attention. This move proved successful; and presently, in the task of licking the little creature all over to make sure it was not hurt, "Spotty" forgot her noble rage. Then, slowly and patiently, by pushing, pulling, and coaxing, the two women got the calf up out of the hollow and along the homeward path, while the mother, heedless of her streaming wounds, crowded against them, mooing softly with satisfaction. She was craving now, for her little one, the safe shelter of the barn-yard.

At the well the quaint procession stopped, and the calf fell to nursing; while Melindy washed the cow's wounds, and Mrs. Griffis hunted up some tar to use as a salve upon them. As she moved briskly about the yard, Melindy broke into a peal of joyous but almost hysterical laughter.

"I declare to goodness, Granny," she cried, in response to the old woman's questioning look, "if you ain't just as spry as me. I've heard tell that bear's grease was a great medicine for rheumatism. It's plain to be seen, Granny, that you've used up a whole bear for yours."

"It wasn't the bear, Child!" answered the old woman, gravely. "It was that ter'ble scream o' yours cured my rheumatiz! Old 'Spotty,' she come to her young one's call. Could I do less, Child, when I heerd my little one cry out fer me?"



WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE'S

A Certain Rich Man

Cloth, $1.50 net

"It pulsates with humor, interest, passionate love, adventures, pathos—every page is woven with threads of human nature, life as we know it, life as it is, and above it all a spirit of righteousness, true piety, and heroic patriotism. These inspire the author's genius and fine literary quality, thrilling the reader with tenderest emotion, and holding to the end his unflagging, absorbing interest."—The Public Ledger, Philadelphia.

"Mr. White has written a big and satisfying book made up of the elements of American life as we know them—the familiar humor, sorrows, ambitions, crimes, sacrifices—revealed to us with peculiar freshness and vigor in the multitude of human actions and by the crowd of delightful people who fill his four-hundred odd pages.... It deserves a high place among the novels that deal with American life. No recent American novel save one has sought to cover so broad a canvas, or has created so strong an impression of ambition and of sincerity."—Chicago Evening Post.

"The great fictional expression of this mighty Twentieth Century altruistic movement is sure to be something in kind and in degree akin to Mr. White's 'A Certain Rich Man.'"—Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

"An American novel, home-grown in home soil, vital with homely American motives, and fragrant with homely American memories, Mr. White has certainly achieved."—New York Times.

Dr. Washington Gladden considered this book of sufficient importance to take it and the text from which the title was drawn as his subject for an entire sermon, in the course of which he said: "In its ethical and social significance it is the most important piece of fiction that has lately appeared in America. I do not think that a more trenchant word has been spoken to this nation since 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' And it is profoundly to be hoped that this book may do for the prevailing Mammonism what 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' did for slavery."

PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York



AMONG RECENT NOVELS

F. MARION CRAWFORD'S

Stradella

Illustrated, cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

"Schools of fiction have come and gone, but Mr. Crawford has always remained in favor. There are two reasons for his continued popularity; he always had a story to tell and he knew how to tell it. He was a born story teller, and what is more rare, a trained one."—The Independent.

The White Sister

Illustrated, cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

"Mr. Crawford tells his love story with plenty of that dramatic instinct which was ever one of his best gifts. We are, as always, absorbed and amused."—New York Tribune.

"Good stirring romance, simple and poignant."—Chicago Record Herald.

"His people are always vividly real, invariably individual."—Boston Transcript.

ROBERT HERRICK'S

Together

Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

"An able book, remarkably so, and one which should find a place in the library of any woman who is not a fool."—Editorial in the New York American.

A Life for a Life

Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

Mr. W. D. Howells says in the North American Review: "What I should finally say of his work is that it is more broadly based than that of any other American novelist of his generation.... Mr. Herrick's fiction is a force for the higher civilization, which to be widely felt, needs only to be widely known."

JAMES LANE ALLEN'S

The Bride of the Mistletoe

Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net

"He has achieved a work of art more complete in expression than anything that has yet come from him. It is like a cry of the soul, so intense one scarcely realizes whether it is put into words or not."—Bookman.

"It is a masterpiece ... the most carefully wrought out of all his work."



WINSTON CHURCHILL'S

Mr. Crewe's Career

Illustrated, cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

"Mr. Churchill rises to a level he has never known before and gives us one of the best stories of American life ever written; ... it is written out of a sympathy that goes deep.... We go on to the end with growing appreciation.... It is good to have such a book."—New York Tribune.

"American realism, American romance, and American doctrine, all overtraced by the kindliest, most appealing American humor."—New York World.

ELLEN GLASGOW'S

The Romance of a Plain Man

Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

"To any one who has a genuine interest in American literature there is no pleasanter thing than to see the work of some good American writer strengthening and deepening year by year as has the work of Miss Ellen Glasgow. From the first she has had the power to tell a strong story, full of human interest, but as the years have passed and her work has continued it has shown an increasing mellowness and sympathy. This is particularly evident in 'The Romance of a Plain Man.'"—Chicago Daily Tribune.

JACK LONDON'S

Martin Eden

Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

The stirring story of a man who rises by force of sheer ability and perseverance from the humblest beginning to a position of fame and influence. The elemental strength, the vigor and determination of Martin Eden, make him the most interesting character that Mr. London has ever created. The plan of the novel permits the author to cover a wide sweep of society, the contrasting types of his characters giving unfailing variety and interest to the story of Eden's love and fight.

ZONA GALE'S

Friendship Village

Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

"As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, and sometimes both together, so that the delighted reader hardly knows whether laughter or tears are fittest for his emotion.... The book will stir the feelings deeply."—New York Times.

To be followed by "Friendship Village Love Stories."



CHARLES MAJOR'S

A Gentle Knight of Old Brandenburg

Illustrated, cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

Mr. Major has selected a period to the romance of which other historical novelists have been singularly blind. The boyhood of Frederick the Great and the strange wooing of his charming sister Wilhelmina have afforded a theme, rich in its revelation of human nature and full of romantic situations.

MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT'S

Poppea of the Post Office

Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

"A rainbow romance, ... tender yet bracing, cheerily stimulating ... its genial entirety refreshes like a cooling shower."—Chicago Record Herald.

"There cannot be too many of these books by 'Barbara.' Mrs. Wright knows good American stock through and through and presents it with effective simplicity."—Boston Advertiser.

FRANK DANBY'S

Sebastian

Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

Whenever a father's ideals conflict with a mother's hopes for the son of their dreams, you meet the currents underlying the plot of "Sebastian." Its author's skill in making vividly real the types and conditions of London has never been shown to better advantage.

EDEN PHILLPOTTS'

The Three Brothers

Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net

"'The Three Brothers' seems to us the best yet of the long series of these remarkable Dartmoor tales. If Shakespeare had written novels we can think that some of his pages would have been like some of these. Here certainly is language, turn of humor, philosophical play, vigor of incident, such as might have come straight from Elizabeth's day.... The book is full of a very moving interest and is agreeable and beautiful."—The New York Sun.

PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York

THE END