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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Winter Fun, by William O. Stoddard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Winter Fun
+
+Author: William O. Stoddard
+
+Release Date: January 23, 2011 [EBook #35042]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINTER FUN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charlene Taylor, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           WINTER FUN
+
+                     BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD
+
+
+    AUTHOR OF "DAB KINZER," "THE QUARTET," "SALTILLO BOYS," ETC.
+
+    NEW YORK
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+    1885
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
+
+    ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED
+    BY RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY,
+    BOSTON.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. ALL AROUND A FIREPLACE
+
+CHAPTER II. RIGHT OUT INTO THE WOODS
+
+CHAPTER III. THE RABBIT-HUNT
+
+CHAPTER IV. WINTER COMFORT
+
+CHAPTER V. A WINTER PICNIC-PARTY
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE DONATION-PARTY
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE WORD-BATTLE AT COBBLEVILLE
+
+CHAPTER VIII. AN OLD-FASHIONED SNOW
+
+CHAPTER IX. GRAND COASTING
+
+CHAPTER X. THE DEER-HUNT ON THE CRUST
+
+CHAPTER XI. ON THE ICE
+
+CHAPTER XII. A VERY EXCITING WINTER EVENING
+
+CHAPTER XIII. A FIRESIDE STORY
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE BEAR-TRAP
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE NEW CHESSMEN
+
+CHAPTER XVI. WINTER FLOWERS AND THE PARTY
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE SNOW-FORT
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. THE SUGAR-BUSH AND THE BEAR
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE FLOOD AND THE END
+
+
+
+
+WINTER FUN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ALL AROUND A FIREPLACE.
+
+
+The gate that opened from the yard into the lane leading back to the
+barn was directly opposite the side-door of the house. The door was
+shut, but the gate was open; and in it stood a gray-haired dame with a
+sharp nose and silver-rimmed spectacles. The house behind her was a
+small one, white-painted, without blinds to its windows, but with an air
+of snug comfort all over it. Just beyond the gate and the woman stood a
+tall, vigorous-looking young fellow of not more than eighteen; and his
+left hand was on the nose of a nice-looking horse; and behind the horse
+was a neat, bright, very red cutter. The boy's face was also somewhat
+rosy; and so, for that frosty moment, was the tip of his mother's nose.
+
+"Now, Lavawjer, that there cutter's all you've got to show for about as
+hard a month's work as ever you put in; but I won't say that the deacon
+drew a hard bargain with ye."
+
+"Well, mother, just look at it."
+
+"I'm a-lookin' at it, and it isn't the cutter it was. You've had it
+painted red, and varnished, and you've put on a new goose-neck in place
+of the broken one, and there's room in it for two if neither one on 'em
+was too heavy."
+
+"That's so, mother; and all you've got to do is just to try it. I'll
+take you to meeting in it next Sunday. You ought to see how the colt
+gets over the snow with only that cutter behind him."
+
+"I ain't a bit sorry you've got somethin' for him to do. You've been
+a-raisin' on him since before he was a yearlin', and he hasn't earned
+his keep."
+
+Mrs. Stebbins had made her first look at her son's new cutter a severe
+and searching one, and she told him very fully all her thoughts about it
+and about the sorrel colt. She was a faithful mother; but there was
+pride in her eye, and more red on the tip of her nose, when she turned
+to go into the house. He did not hear her say to herself,--
+
+"He's the smartest boy in all Benton Valley, and now he's got the nicest
+horse and cutter,--that is, for his age, considerin',--and I ain't one
+bit afraid it'll spile him."
+
+He was now leading his sorrel pet, with the jaunty cutter following, out
+through the lane to the barn. It was a grand thing, and out of the
+common range of human events, for a country-boy of his age to have such
+an outfit all his own. Such things can always be accounted for, when you
+find them happening. If he were not just a little "spiled," it was no
+fault of his mother. She was a widow, and he was her only son; and she
+had talked to him and about him pretty steadily from the day he was
+born. He looked older than he really was now, and she often said so; but
+she sometimes added that he knew enough for a man of forty. She had
+named him "Le Voyageur," after a great French traveller whose name she
+had seen in a book when she was a girl; but the Valley boys had
+massacred all the beauty of it, and shortened it into "Vosh." No other
+fellow in all that country had so very remarkable a nickname.
+
+"Now, Jeff," he said, as he cast the sorrel loose from the cutter,
+"maybe there's a chance a-coming that you'll have a better-looking load
+to haul next time you're hitched in. I'll want ye to show your oats if
+you do."
+
+That remark could hardly have referred to Mrs. Stebbins and her next
+Sunday's ride to the meeting-house; but Jeff whinnied gently in reply,
+as if to express his willingness for any improvement, and Vosh led him
+into the stable.
+
+"City folks know some things," he remarked to Jeff, while he poured some
+oats in the manger; "but they don't know what good sleighing is. We'll
+show 'em, soon as we get some bells; and the deacon's got more buffaloes
+than he knows what to do with."
+
+That was a good half-hour before supper, and he seemed in no hurry to
+get into the house; but it was odd that his mother, at the very same
+time, should have been talking to herself, in default of any other
+hearer, about "city folks" and their ways and by-ways and shortcomings.
+She seemed to know a great deal about them, and particularly about their
+general ignorance concerning snow, ice, cold weather, and all the really
+good things of genuine winter. Both she and her son evidently had kindly
+and liberal feelings towards the hardest kind of frost, and were free to
+say as much, but were in doubt as to whether city people could live and
+be comfortable in such weather as had already come. Beyond a doubt, they
+were waiting for somebody. There is nothing else in the wide world that
+will keep people talking as that will; and Mrs. Stebbins said some
+things that sounded as if she were asking questions of the teakettle.
+
+Down the road a little distance, and on the other side of it, a very
+different pair of people were even more interested in city folk, and not
+in their shortcomings so much as in the fact that certain of them seemed
+to be too long a-coming. They were away back in the great old-fashioned
+kitchen of a farmhouse, as large as three of the one in which Mrs.
+Stebbins was getting supper for Vosh.
+
+"Aunt Judith, I hear 'em!"
+
+"Now, Pen, my child!"
+
+The response came from the milk-room, and was followed by the clatter of
+an empty tin milk-pan falling on the floor.
+
+"It sounded like bells."
+
+"It's the wind, Pen. Sakes alive! but they ought to be here by this
+time."
+
+"There, aunt Judith!"
+
+Pen suddenly darted out of the kitchen, leaving the long hind-legs of a
+big pair of waffle-irons sticking helplessly out from the open door of
+the stove.
+
+"Pen! Penelope!--I declare, she's gone. There, I've dropped another pan.
+What's got into me to-night? I just do want to see those children. Poor
+things, how froze they will be!"
+
+Penelope was pressing her eager, excited little face close to the
+frost-flowers on the sitting-room window. It was of no use, cold as it
+made the tip of her nose, to strain her blue eyes across the snowy
+fields, or up the white, glistening reaches of the road. There was
+nothing like a sleigh in sight, nor did her sharpest listening bring her
+any sound of coming sleigh-bells.
+
+"Pen! Penelope Farnham! What's that a-burnin'? Sakes alive! if she
+hasn't gone and stuck them waffle-irons in the fire! She's put a waffle
+in 'em too."
+
+Yes, and the smoke of the lost waffle was carrying tales into the
+milk-room.
+
+"O aunt Judith! I forgot. I just wanted to try one."
+
+"Jest like you, Penelope Farnham. You're always a-tryin' somethin'. If
+you ain't a trial to me, I wouldn't say so. Now, don't you tetch them
+waffles once again, on no account."
+
+"It's all burned as black"--
+
+"Course it is,--black as a coal. I'd ha' thought you'd ha' known
+better'n that. Why, when I was ten years old I could ha' cooked for a
+fam'ly."
+
+"Guess I could do that," said Pen resolutely; but aunt Judith was
+shaking out the smoking remains of the spoiled waffle into the
+"pig-pail," and curtly responded,--
+
+"That looks like it. You'll burn up the irons yet."
+
+Half a minute of silence followed, and then she again spoke from the
+milk-room:--
+
+"Penelope, look at the sittin'-room fire, and see if it wants any more
+wood on it. They'll be chilled clean through when they git here."
+
+Pen obeyed; but it only needed one glance into the great roaring
+fireplace to make sure that no kind of chill could keep its hold on
+anybody in the vicinity of that blaze.
+
+A stove was handier to cook by, and therefore Mr. Farnham had put aside
+his old-fashioned notions, to the extent of having one set up in the
+kitchen. The parlor too, he said, belonged to his wife more than it did
+to him, and therefore he had yielded again, and there was a stove there
+also. It was hard at work now. He had insisted, however, that the wide,
+low-ceilinged, comfortable sitting-room should remain a good deal as his
+father had left it to him; and there the fireplace held its
+wood-devouring own. That was one reason why it was the pleasantest room
+in the house, especially on a winter evening.
+
+Penelope had known that fireplace a long while. She had even played
+"hide-and-coop" in it in warm weather, when it was bright and clean. But
+she thought she had never before seen it so full. "Such a big back-log!"
+she exclaimed aloud. But aunt Judith had followed her in to make sure of
+the condition of things, and it was her voice that added,--
+
+"Yes, and the fore-stick's a foot through. Your father heaped it up just
+before he set out for the village. He might a'most as well have piled
+the whole tree in."
+
+"Father likes fire: so do I."
+
+"He's an awful wasteful man with his wood, though. Pen, just you put
+down that poker. Do you want to have them there top logs a-rollin'
+across the floor?"
+
+"That one lies crooked."
+
+"My child! let it be. I daresn't leave you alone one minute. You'll burn
+the house down over our heads, one of these days."
+
+Pen obeyed. She slowly lowered the long, heavy iron rod, and laid it
+down on the hearth; but such a fire as that was a terrible temptation.
+Almost any man in the world might have been glad to have a good poke at
+it, if only to see the showers of sparks go up from the glowing hickory
+logs.
+
+"There they come!"
+
+Pen turned away from the fire very suddenly; and aunt Judith put her
+hand to her ear, and took off her spectacles, so she could listen
+better.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder."
+
+"That's the sleigh-bells! It's our sleigh, I know it is. Shall I begin
+to make the waffles?"
+
+"Don't you tetch 'em. Pen, get out that chiny thing your mother got to
+put the maple-sirup in."
+
+"Oh, I forgot that."
+
+She brought it out like a flash now; and it must have been the only
+thing she had forgotten when she set the table, for she had walked
+anxiously around it twenty times, at least, since she put the last plate
+in its place.
+
+Faint and far, from away down the road, beyond the turn, the winter wind
+brought up the merry jingle of bells. By the time Pen had brought the
+china pitcher for the sirup from its shelf in the closet, and once more
+darted to the window, she could see her father's black team--blacker
+than ever against the snow--trotting towards the house magnificently.
+
+"Don't I wish I'd gone with 'em! But it was Corry's turn. I guess Susie
+isn't used to waffles, but she can't help liking 'em."
+
+That was quite possible, but it might also be of some importance whether
+Penelope or aunt Judith should have the care of the waffle-irons.
+
+Jingle-jangle-jingle, louder and louder, came the merry bells, till they
+stopped at the great gate, and a tall boy sprang out of the sleigh to
+open it. The front-door of the house swung open quicker than did the
+gate, and Pen was on the stoop, shouting anxiously,--
+
+"Did they come, Corry? Did you get 'em?"
+
+A deep voice from the sleigh responded with a chuckle,--
+
+"Yes, Pen, we caught 'em both. They're right here, and they can't get
+away now."
+
+"I see 'em! There's cousin Susie!"
+
+At that moment she remembered to turn and shout back into the house,--
+
+"Aunt Judith, here they are! They've got 'em both!"
+
+But there was her aunt already in the doorway, with the steaming
+waffle-irons in one hand.
+
+"Sakes alive, child! You'll freeze the whole house. Poor things! and
+they ain't used to cold weather."
+
+Aunt Judith must have had an idea that it was generally summer in the
+city.
+
+The sleigh jangled right up to the bottom step of the stoop now. Mr.
+Farnham got out first, and was followed by his wife. They were followed
+by a very much wrapped-up young lady, into whose arms Pen fairly jumped,
+exclaiming,--
+
+"Susie! Susie Hudson!"
+
+There were no signs of frost-bite on Susie's rosy cheeks, and she hugged
+Penelope vigorously. Just behind her, a little more dignifiedly, there
+descended from the sleigh a boy who may have been two years younger, say
+fourteen or fifteen, who evidently felt that the occasion called upon
+him for his self-possession.
+
+"Pen," said her mother, "don't you mean to kiss cousin Porter?"
+
+Pen was ready. Her little hands went out, and her bright, welcoming face
+was lifted for the kiss; but, if Porter Hudson had been a waffle, he
+would not have been burned by it at all. It was not altogether because
+he was a boy, and a big one, but that he was more a stranger. Susie had
+paid her country-cousins a long summer visit only the year before, while
+Porter had not been seen by any of them since he was four years old.
+Both he and they had forgotten that he had ever been so small as that.
+
+Mr. Farnham started for the barn, to put away his team, bidding Corry go
+on into the house with his cousins. Aunt Judith was at last able to
+close the door behind them, and keep any more of the winter from coming
+in.
+
+It took but half a minute to help Susie and Porter Hudson get their
+things off, and then aunt Judith all but forced them into the chairs she
+had set for them in front of the great fireplace.
+
+"What a splendid fire!"
+
+It was Susie said that, with the glow of it making her very pretty face
+look brighter and prettier, and very happy. She had already won aunt
+Judith's heart over again by being so glad to see her, and she kept
+right on winning it, needlessly; for every thing about that room had to
+be looked at twice, and admired, and told how nice it was.
+
+"It is indeed a remarkably fine fire," said Porter with emphasis, at the
+end of a full minute.
+
+"And we're going to have waffles and maple-sugar for supper," said Pen.
+"Don't you like waffles?"
+
+"Yes," said Porter: "they're very nice, no doubt."
+
+"And after such a sleigh-ride," chimed in Susie. "The sleighing is
+splendid, beautiful!"
+
+"More snow here than you have in the city?" suggested Corry to Porter.
+
+"Yes, a little; but then, we have to have ours removed as fast as it
+comes down,--get it out of the way, you know."
+
+"It isn't in the way here. We'd have a high time of it if we tried to
+get rid of our snow."
+
+"I should say you would. And then it does very well where the people
+make use of sleighs."
+
+"Don't you have 'em in the city?"
+
+Pen was looking at her cousins with eyes that were full of pity, but at
+that moment aunt Judith called to her from the kitchen,--
+
+"Penelope, come and watch the waffle-irons while I make the tea."
+
+"Waffles!" exclaimed Susie. "I never saw any made."
+
+"Come with me, then. I'll show you; that is, if you're warm enough."
+
+"Warm! Why, I wasn't cold one bit. I'm warm as toast."
+
+Out they went; and there were so many errands on the hands of aunt
+Judith and Mrs. Farnham just then, that the girls had the kitchen stove
+to themselves for a few moments. Pen may have been six years younger,
+but she was conscious of a feeling of immense superiority in her
+capacity of cook. She kept it until, as she was going over, for Susie's
+benefit, a list of her neighbors, and telling what had become of them
+since the summer visit, Mr. Farnham came in at the kitchen-door, and
+almost instantly exclaimed,--
+
+"Mind your waffles, Pen. You're burning 'em."
+
+"Why, so I did,--that one, just a little. I was telling Susie"--
+
+"A little, my child!" interrupted aunt Judith. "I'd as lief eat burnt
+leather. Oh, dear! give me those irons."
+
+"Now, aunt Judith, please fill 'em up for Susie to try. I want to show
+her how."
+
+The look on Susie's face was quite enough to keep aunt Judith from
+making a breath of objection, and the rich creamy batter was poured into
+the smoking moulds.
+
+"Don't you let it burn, Susie," said Pen. "They want to come out when
+they're just a good brown. I'll show you."
+
+Susie set out to watch the fate of that waffle most diligently; but she
+had not at all counted on what might come in the mean time,--a visitor,
+for instance.
+
+Susie had already asked about the Stebbinses, and Pen had answered,--
+
+"They know you're coming. Vosh was here this very morning, and I told
+him; and he said he'd be glad to have you call and see him."
+
+"Call and see him? Well."
+
+No more remarks had room to be made in just then; for, only a few
+minutes before aunt Judith poured out that waffle, Mrs. Stebbins had
+said to her son,--
+
+"I heered the deacon's sleigh come up the road, Lavawjer. Jest you take
+a teacup, and go over and borry a drawin' of tea of Miss Farnham. Don't
+you miss nothin'. City ways'll spile most anybody; and that there Hudson
+gal--Susie, her name was--is likely gettin' stuck up enough by this
+time."
+
+She told him a great deal more than that before he got out of the door
+with his teacup, and it looked as if he were likely to have questions to
+answer when he should come back.
+
+He escaped a little unceremoniously, right in the middle of a long
+sentence. And so, just when Susie was most deeply absorbed in her
+experiment, there came a loud rap at the kitchen-door; then, without
+waiting for any one to come and open it, the door swung back, and in
+walked Vosh, as large as life, with the teacup in his hand.
+
+He did look large; but no amount of frost or fire could have made him
+color so red as he did when Susie Hudson let go of the irons, and
+stepped right forward to shake hands with him.
+
+"How d'ye do, Vosh? How is your mother?"
+
+"Pretty well, thank you. How do you do? Mother's first-rate, but she's
+wrong this time. I don't see as you're stuck up a bit. You're just like
+you was last summer, only prettier."
+
+The one great weakness in the character of Vosh Stebbins was that he
+could not help telling the truth, to save his life. It was very bad for
+him sometimes; and now, before Susie could smother her laugh, and make
+up her mind what to answer him, he held out his teacup to aunt Judith.
+
+"Miss Farnham, mother told me to borrow a drawing of tea. We ain't out
+of tea, by a long ways; but she heard the deacon's sleigh a-coming, and
+she wanted to know if the folks from the city'd got here."
+
+"They've come," said aunt Judith shortly, "Susie and her brother. You
+tell your mother I wish she'd send me over a dozen of eggs. The skunks
+have stolen ours as fast as the hens have laid 'em."
+
+"We've got some," said Vosh. "I'll fetch 'em over.--Susie, where's your
+brother?"
+
+"He's in the sitting-room."
+
+"Yes, Vosh," said Pen, "he's there. Walk right in. Corry's there too,
+and mother, and--O Susie! Dear me! our waffle's burned again."
+
+"Why! so it is."
+
+"Never mind, Susie," said aunt Judith with the most hospitable
+recklessness, as she shook out the proceeds of that careless cookery
+upon a plate. "It's only spiled on one side. There's always some of 'em
+get burned. Some folks like 'em better when they're kind o' crisp. I'll
+fill ye up another."
+
+Vosh looked as if he would willingly stay and see how the next trial
+succeeded; but politeness required him to walk on into the sitting-room,
+and be introduced to Porter Hudson.
+
+"Vosh," said Corry, "he's never been in the country in winter before in
+all his life, and he's come to stay ever so long. So's Susie."
+
+"That's good," began Vosh; but he was interrupted by an invitation from
+Mrs. Farnham to stay to supper, and eat some waffles, and he very
+promptly replied,--
+
+"Thank you, I don't care if I do. I threw our waffle-irons at Bill
+Hinks's dog one day last fall. It most killed him, but it busted the
+irons, and we've been 'tending to have 'em mended ever sence. We haven't
+done it yet, though, and so we haven't had any waffles."
+
+Aunt Judith had now taken hold of the business at the kitchen stove; for
+Susie had made one triumphant success, and she might not do as well next
+time. All the rest were summoned to the supper-table.
+
+The room was all one glow of light and warmth. The maple-sugar had been
+melted to the exact degree of richness required. The waffles were coming
+in rapidly and in perfect condition. Everybody had been hungry, and felt
+more so now; and even Porter Hudson was compelled to confess that the
+first supper of his winter visit in the country was at least equal to
+any he could remember eating anywhere.
+
+"City folks," remarked Penelope, "don't know how to cook waffles, but
+I'll teach Susie. Then she can make 'em for you when you go back, only
+you can't do it without milk and eggs."
+
+"We can buy 'em."
+
+"Of course you can; but we lay our own eggs, only they get stole. You'll
+have to send up here for your maple-sugar."
+
+"We can buy that too, I guess."
+
+"But we get it right out of the woods. You just ought to be here in
+sugar-time."
+
+"Pen," said her father, "we're going to keep 'em both till then, and
+make them ever so sweet before we let 'em go home."
+
+He was at that moment glancing rapidly from one to another of those four
+fresh young faces. He did not tell them so, but he was tracing that very
+curious and shadowy thing which we call "a family resemblance." It was
+there, widely as the faces varied otherwise; and all their years had not
+taken it out of the older faces. Perhaps the city cousins, with especial
+help from Susie rather than Porter, had somewhat the advantage in good
+looks. They had it in dress also; but when it came to names--well, aunt
+Judith herself had had the naming of her brother's children, and she had
+done her best by them. Penelope and Coriolanus were every way larger
+names than Porter and Susan; and Vosh could have told them that there is
+a great deal in a name, if you can get it well boiled down for every-day
+use.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+RIGHT OUT INTO THE WOODS.
+
+
+Vosh Stebbins hurried away from Deacon Farnham's pretty soon after
+supper, but he had made no sort of mistake in staying that long. He had
+understood his duty to his mother precisely, and he had done it to her
+entire satisfaction. Almost her first words, after his return home,
+were,--
+
+"Made ye stay to tea, did they? Well, I wouldn't have had ye not to
+stay, for any thing. Susie's fetched along her brother with her, has
+she? Now, jest you sit right down, and tell me; and I won't say one word
+till you git through, and I want to know."
+
+"Miss Farnham wants a dozen of eggs."
+
+"You don't say! Well, you jest take 'em right over, but don't you wait a
+minute. They won't want ye 'round the first evening. Tell her our
+poultry's doin' first-rate, and I don't see why she doesn't ever have
+any kind of luck with winter layin'. She doesn't manage right, somehow.
+Tell her it's all in feedin' of 'em. No kind of hens'll do well onless
+they git somethin' to eat."
+
+Vosh was counting his eggs into a basket, thirteen to the dozen; and he
+was out of the door with them before his mother had said half she wished
+to say about the best method for making hens prosper in cold weather. He
+obeyed his orders excellently, however, and came back at once to make
+his report to his mother as to the results of his first visit; that is,
+he returned to sit still, and put in a few words here and there, while
+she told him all he had done and said, and a good deal more than he had
+said or done, at Deacon Farnham's tea-table.
+
+It looked at last as if Mrs. Stebbins could almost have gone right on
+with an account of what was yet doing and saying around the great fire
+in the sitting-room. Vosh loved his mother dearly; but he was all the
+while thinking of that other fireplace, and wishing he were there--not
+in it, of course, but sitting in front of it.
+
+There was indeed a great deal of merry talk going on there, but Mrs.
+Farnham was a considerate woman. She insisted upon it that her niece and
+nephew must be tired with their long journey, and that they should go to
+bed in good season. It was of little use for them to assert the
+contrary, and Susie knew more about country hours than her brother did.
+The sitting-room had to be given up, fire and all, in favor of sleep.
+
+The last words Porter Hudson heard anybody say that night came from the
+lips of Penelope:--
+
+"You needn't wait for me to ring the second bell in the morning. You'd a
+good deal better come right down into the sitting-room, where it's
+warm."
+
+It had taken three generations of hard-working and well-to-do Farnhams
+to build all there was of that great, queer, rambling, comfortable old
+farmhouse. Each owner had added something on one side or the other, or
+in the rear; so that there was now room enough in it for the largest
+kind of a family. Porter Hudson now had a good-sized chamber all to
+himself; but he remarked of it, shortly after he got in,--
+
+"No furnace heaters in this house; of course not: they don't have such
+things in the country."
+
+No: nor was there any gas, nor hot and cold water; and the furniture was
+only just as much as was really needed. He had never before slept in a
+feather-bed; but he was not at all sorry to burrow into one that night,
+out of the pitilessly frosty air of that chamber.
+
+"How a fellow does go down!" he said to himself; "and it fits all around
+him. I'll be warm in a minute." And so he was, and with the warmth came
+the soundest kind of slumber. The Farnhams had kept any number of geese,
+year after year, in earlier days, and all their feather-beds were
+uncommonly deep and liberal.
+
+Susie had Pen for a chum, and that was a good reason why neither of them
+fell asleep right away. It is always a wonder how much talking there is
+to be done. It is a good thing, too, that so many enterprising people,
+old and young, are always ready to take up the task of talking it, even
+if they have to lie awake for a while.
+
+Silence came at last, creeping from room to room; and there is hardly
+anywhere else such perfect silence to be obtained as can be had in and
+about a farmhouse away up country, in the dead of winter and the dead of
+night. It is so still that you can almost hear the starlight crackle on
+the snow, if there is no wind blowing.
+
+Winter mornings do not anywhere get up as early as men and women are
+compelled to, but it is more completely so on a farm than in the city.
+The chamber Porter Hudson slept in was as dark as a pocket when he heard
+the clang of Penelope's first bell that next morning after his arrival.
+He sprang out of bed at once, and found his candle, and lighted it to
+dress by. One glance through the frosty windows told him how little was
+to be seen at that time of the year and of the day.
+
+In another instant all his thoughts went down stairs ahead of him, and
+centred themselves upon the great fireplace in the sitting-room. He
+dressed himself with remarkable quickness, and followed them. He thought
+that he had never in his life seen a finer-looking fire, the moment he
+was able to spread his hands in front of it.
+
+Mrs. Farnham was there too, setting the breakfast-table, and smiling on
+him; and Porter's next idea was, that his aunt was the rosiest,
+pleasantest, and most comfortable of women.
+
+"It would take a good deal of cold weather to freeze her," he said to
+himself; and he was right.
+
+He could hear aunt Judith out in the kitchen, complaining to Susie and
+Pen that every thing in the milk-room had frozen. When Corry and his
+father came in from feeding the stock, however, they both declared that
+it was a "splendid, frosty, nipping kind of a morning." They looked as
+if it might be, and Porter hitched his chair a little nearer the fire;
+but Corry added,--
+
+"Now, Port, we're in for some fun."
+
+"All right. What is it?"
+
+"We're going to the woods after breakfast. You and I'll take our guns
+with us, and see if we can't knock over some rabbits."
+
+"Shoot some rabbits!"
+
+"I'll take father's gun, and you can take mine."
+
+Just then Pen's voice sounded from the kitchen excitedly,--
+
+"Do you hear that, Susie? They're going to the woods. Let's go!"
+
+"Oh! if they'll let us."
+
+"Course they will."
+
+"Pen! Penelope Farnham! Look out for those cakes."
+
+"I'm turning 'em, aunt Judith. I'm doing 'em splendidly.--Susie, some of
+your sausages are a'most done. Let me take 'em out for you."
+
+"No, Pen: I want to cook them all myself. You 'tend to your cakes."
+
+Buckwheat-cakes and home-made sausages,--what a breakfast that was for a
+frosty morning!
+
+Susie Hudson was puzzled to say which she enjoyed most,--the cooking or
+the eating; and she certainly did her share of both very well for a
+young lady of sixteen from the great city.
+
+"Port, can you shoot?" asked Corry a little suddenly at table.
+
+"Shoot! I should say so. Do you ever get any thing bigger than rabbits
+out here?"
+
+"Didn't you know? Why, right back from where we're going this morning
+are the mountains. Not a farm till you get away out into the St.
+Lawrence-river country."
+
+"Yes, I know all that."
+
+"Sometimes the deer come right down, specially in winter. Last winter
+there was a bear came down and stole one of our hogs, but we got him."
+
+"Got the hog back? Wasn't he hurt?"
+
+"Hurt! Guess he was. The bear killed him. But we followed the bear, and
+we got him,--Vosh Stebbins and father and me."
+
+Porter tried hard to look as if he were quite accustomed to following
+and killing all the bears that meddled with his hogs; but Pen
+exclaimed,--
+
+"Now, Susie, you needn't be scared a bit. There won't be a single
+bear--not where you're going."
+
+"Won't there?" said Susie almost regretfully. "How I'd like to see one!"
+
+There was a great deal more to be said about bears and other wild
+creatures; and, just as breakfast was over, there came a great noise of
+rattling and creaking and shouting in front of the sitting-room windows.
+
+"There he is!" said Corry.
+
+Susie and her brother hurried to look; and there was Vosh Stebbins with
+Deacon Farnham's great wood-sleigh, drawn by two pairs of strong,
+long-horned, placid-looking oxen.
+
+"Couldn't one pair draw it?" asked Porter of Corry.
+
+"Guess they could, but two's easier; and, besides, they've nothing else
+to do. We'll heap it up too. You just wait and see."
+
+There was not long to wait, for the excitement rose fast in the
+sitting-room, and Susie and Pen were in that sleigh a little in advance
+of everybody else. Its driver stood by the heads of his first yoke of
+oxen, and Susie at once exclaimed,--
+
+"Good--morning, Vosh. What a tremendous whip!"
+
+"Why, Susie," said Pen, "that isn't a whip, it's an ox-gad."
+
+"That's it, Pen," said Vosh; but he seemed disposed to talk to his oxen
+rather than to anybody else. The yoke next the sleigh stood on either
+side of a long, heavy "tongue;" but the foremost pair were fastened to
+the end of that by a chain which passed between them to a hook in their
+yoke. These latter two animals, as Vosh explained to Susie, "were only
+about half educated, and they took more than their share of driving."
+
+He began to do it for them now, and it was half a wonder to see how
+accurately the huge beasts kept the right track down through the gate
+and out into the road. It seemed easier then, for all they had to do was
+to go straight ahead.
+
+"Let me take the whip, do, please," said Susie; and Vosh only remarked,
+as he handed it to her,--
+
+"Guess you'll find it heavy."
+
+She lifted it with both hands; and he smiled all over his broad, ruddy
+face, as she made a desperate effort to swing the lash over the oxen.
+
+"Go 'long now! Git ap! Cluck-cluck."
+
+She chirruped to those oxen with all her might, while Vosh put his
+handkerchief over his mouth, and had a violent fit of coughing.
+
+"You'll do!" shouted her uncle from behind the sleigh. "That's
+first-rate. I'll hire you to team it for me all the rest of the
+winter.--Boys, you'd better put down your guns. Lay them flat, and don't
+step on 'em."
+
+Porter Hudson had stuck to his gun manfully from the moment it was
+handed him. He had carried it over his shoulder, slanting it a little
+across towards the other shoulder. He had seen whole regiments of city
+soldiers do that, and so he knew it was the correct way to carry a gun.
+He was now quite willing, however, to imitate Corry, and put his weapon
+down flat on the bottom of the sleigh. The gun would be safe there; and,
+besides, he had been watching Vosh Stebbins, and listening, and he had
+an idea it was time he should show what he knew about oxen. They were
+plodding along very well, and Susie was letting them alone at the
+moment.
+
+"Susie," he said, "give me that gad."
+
+Vosh looked somewhat doubtful as she surrendered the whip. They were
+going up a little ascent, and right beyond them the fences on either
+side of the road seemed to stop. Beyond that, all was forest, and the
+road had a crooked look as it went in among the trees.
+
+Porter had stronger arms than his sister, and he could do more with an
+ox-gad. The first swing he gave the long hickory stock, the heavy,
+far-reaching lash at the end of it came around with a "swish," and
+knocked the coon-skin cap from the head of Vosh. Then the whip came
+down--stock, lash, and all--along the broad backs of the oxen.
+
+"Gee! Haw! G'lang! Get up! G'lang now! Haw! Gee!"
+
+Porter felt that his reputation was at stake. He raised the gad again,
+and he shouted vigorously. The tongue-yoke of oxen right under his nose
+did not seem to mind it much, and plodded right along as if they had not
+heard any one say a word to them; but their younger and more skittish
+helpers in front shook their heads a little uneasily.
+
+"Gee! Haw! G'lang!"
+
+Porter was quite proud of the way the lash came down that time, and the
+cracker of it caught the near ox of the forward team smartly on the left
+ear. It was a complete success, undoubtedly; but, to Porter's
+astonishment, that bewildered yoke of steers forward whirled suddenly to
+the right. The next moment they were floundering in a snow-drift, as if
+they were trying to turn around and look at him.
+
+Perhaps they were; but Vosh at that moment snatched the gad from Porter,
+and sprang out of the sleigh, saying something, as he went, about "not
+wanting to have the gals upset." Corry was dancing a sort of double
+shuffle, and shouting,--
+
+"That's it! First time I ever saw an ox-team gee and haw together.
+Hurrah for you, Port!"
+
+"Pen," said Susie, "what does he mean?"
+
+"Mean? Don't you know? Why, it's 'gee' to turn 'em this way, and it's
+'haw' to turn 'em that way. They can't turn both ways at once."
+
+That double team had set out to do it quite obediently, but Vosh got
+matters straightened very quickly. Then he stuck to his whip and did his
+own driving, until the sleigh was pulled out of the road, half a mile
+farther, into a sort of open space in the forest. There was not much
+depth of snow on the ground, and there were stumps of trees sticking up
+through it in all directions. Vosh drove right on until he halted his
+team by a great pile of logs that were already cut for hauling.
+
+"Are they not too big for the fireplace?" asked Susie of Pen.
+
+"Of course they are," said Pen; but Corry added,--
+
+"We can cut up all we want for the stoves after we get 'em to the house.
+The big ones'll cut in two for back-logs."
+
+He had been telling Porter, all the way, about the fun there was in
+felling big trees, and that young gentleman had frankly proposed to cut
+down a few before they set out after any rabbits or bears.
+
+"Just see father swing that axe!" said Pen proudly, as the stalwart old
+farmer walked up to a tall hickory, and began to make the chips fly.
+
+"It's splendid!" said Susie.
+
+Vosh Stebbins had his axe out of the sleigh now, and seemed determined
+to show what he could do.
+
+It looked like the easiest thing in the world. He and the deacon merely
+swung their axes up, and let them go down exactly in the right place;
+and the glittering edges went in, in, with a hollow thud, and at every
+other cut a great chip would spring away across the snow.
+
+"It doesn't take either of them a great while to bring a tree down,"
+said Corry. "You fetch along that other axe, and we'll try one. They've
+all got to come down: so it doesn't make any difference what we cut
+into."
+
+The girls were contented to stay in the sleigh and look on, and the oxen
+stood as still as if they intended never to move again.
+
+"Susie!" exclaimed Pen, "here comes Ponto. Nobody knew where he was when
+we started."
+
+There he was now, however,--the great shaggy, long-legged
+house-dog,--coming up the road with a succession of short, sharp barks,
+as if he were protesting against being left out of such a picnic-party
+as that.
+
+"Pen! he's coming right into the sleigh."
+
+"No, he ain't. You'll see. He'll go after Corry. He's only smelling to
+see if the guns are here. He knows what they mean."
+
+"Will he hunt?"
+
+"I guess he will. When father or Corry or Vosh won't go, he goes off and
+hunts by himself, only he doesn't bring home any game."
+
+He seemed just now to be stirred to a sort of frenzy of delighted
+barking by what his nose told him, but at the end of it he sat down on
+the snow near the sleigh. No dog of good common sense would follow a boy
+with an axe away from the place where the guns were.
+
+Meantime, Corry had picked out a maple-tree of medium size, and had cut
+a few chips from it. It was easy to see that he knew how to handle an
+axe, if he could not bury one as deeply in the wood of a tree as could
+his father or Vosh. He also knew enough too, somehow, to get well out of
+the way when he handed the axe to Porter Hudson, remarking,--
+
+"Now, Port, cut it right down. Maybe it's a bee-tree."
+
+"Bee-tree! Are there any in winter? Do you ever find any?"
+
+"Well, not all the while; but there are bee-trees, and the bees must be
+in 'em, just the same, in any kind of weather."
+
+That was so, no doubt; but if there had been a dozen hives of bees
+hidden away in the solid wood of that vigorous maple-tree, they would
+have been safe there until spring, for all the chopping of Porter
+Hudson. He managed to make the edge of the axe hit squarely the first
+time it struck, but it did not more than go through the bark. No scratch
+like that would get a chip ready. Porter colored with vexation; and he
+gave his next cut a little hastily, but he gave it with all his might.
+The edge of the axe hit several inches from the first scratch, and it
+seemed to take a quick twist on its own account just as it struck. It
+glanced from the tree, and away it went into the snow, jerking its
+handle rudely out of Porter's hands.
+
+"I declare!"
+
+"I say, Port, don't let's cut down any more trees. Let's get our guns,
+and go down into the swamp for some rabbits. There's Ponto. He'll stir
+'em up for us."
+
+Porter was fishing for his axe with a pretty red face, and he replied,--
+
+"I guess we'd better. I'm not much used to chopping."
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"We burn coal in the city."
+
+"No chopping to do. I know how it is. Got your axe? Come on."
+
+All that was very polite; but Corry had less trouble now, in keeping up
+a feeling of equality with his city cousin. They were nearly of an age;
+but a city boy of fourteen has seen a great many things that one of the
+same years, brought up among the northern lakes and mountains, knows
+nothing about, and Corry had been a little in awe of Porter.
+
+They had tucked their trousers into their boots when they left the
+house; and now they got their guns out of the sleigh, slung their
+powder-flasks and shot-pouches over their shoulders, and marched away
+through the woods.
+
+The two girls looked after them as if they also were hungry for a
+rabbit-hunt. As for Ponto, that very shaggy and snowy dog was plainly
+intending to run between every two trees, and through each and every
+clump of bushes, as if in a desperate state of dread lest he might miss
+the tracks of some game or other. Sniff, sniff, sniff, everywhere! and
+twice he actually began to paw the snow before he and his two sportsmen
+were out of sight from the sleigh.
+
+"Boys can have more fun in the woods than girls," began Susie half
+regretfully.
+
+"No, they can't, Susie. Just you watch that tree. It'll come down pretty
+quickly. It'll make the splendidest kind of a crash."
+
+It was good fun to watch that chopping, and see the chips fly. Susie
+found herself becoming more and more deeply interested, as the wide
+notches sank farther and farther into the massive trunks of the two
+trees her uncle and Vosh Stebbins were working on. Vosh chopped for dear
+life; but, in spite of all he could do, the deacon had his tree down
+first. It was a tall, noble-looking tree. There were no branches near
+the ground, but there was a fine broad crown of them away up there where
+the sun could get at them in summer. It seemed almost a pity to destroy
+a forest-king like that, but at last it began to totter and lean.
+
+"O Pen! it's coming."
+
+"Don't shut your eyes, Susie: keep 'em open, and see it come."
+
+Susie did try; but when that tall, majestic trunk seemed to throw out
+its great arms, and give the matter up, she could not look any longer,
+and she put her head down. Then she heard a tremendous dull, crashing
+sound, and her eyes came open to see a cloud of light snow rising from
+the spot on which the forest-king had fallen.
+
+"Isn't it splendid!"
+
+"Yes, Pen, it's wonderful."
+
+"Vosh's tree is almost ready. There! it's going to go."
+
+Vosh had not been as careful as Deacon Farnham in aiming the fall of his
+tree, for it went down into the arms of a smaller one, crashing and
+breaking through them; and the sharp, snapping sound of the crushed
+branches went far and wide through the silence of the snowy forest.
+
+Pen said nothing, and Susie was conscious of a sort of still feeling, as
+if she had no further remarks to make just then.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE RABBIT-HUNT.
+
+
+Deacon Farnham was fond of chopping down trees; but he had not brought a
+big sleigh into the woods that morning, with two yoke of oxen, merely to
+have them stand still in the snow while he did some chopping. Such fires
+as he kept up at the farmhouse called for liberal supplies; and so Susie
+was to have an opportunity to see a load of logs put on.
+
+She and Pen had to get out of the sleigh, and then she expressed her
+wonder if her uncle and Vosh would be strong enough to lift those huge
+"back-log" pieces into it:--
+
+"They never can do it, Pen, not in all the world."
+
+"Lift 'em! Of course they won't. I'll show you how they do it: it's
+dreadful easy, soon as you know how."
+
+It would hardly have been as easy for Pen and Susie as it seemed to be
+for Vosh and the deacon.
+
+They took all the side-stakes out of the sleigh, on the side towards the
+wood-pile; and they put down, with one end of each on the sleigh, and
+the other end in the snow, a pair of long, strong pieces of wood that
+Vosh called "skids:" that made an inclined plane, and it was nothing but
+good hard work to roll the logs up, and into their places on the sleigh.
+They made a tier all over the sleigh-bottom, and then the lighter logs
+were piled on them in regular order, till the load was finished off on
+top with a heap of bark and brushwood.
+
+"That'll crackle good when it burns," said Vosh. "I like brush on a
+fire: don't you?"
+
+Susie said she did; and she probably told the truth, for she was
+beginning to think she liked every thing in the country, even in winter.
+
+"Now, Pen," said Vosh, "if you and Susie'll climb up, we'll set out for
+home with this load."
+
+"Isn't your father coming, Pen?"
+
+"No, Susie, I guess he won't."
+
+"Will he stay here and chop trees all alone?"
+
+"He says he likes it, and he isn't a bit afraid of being alone. There's
+a man at the house to help Vosh when we get there. Now, Susie, we must
+climb."
+
+There was fun in that, but Pen was up first.
+
+"Is your dress caught, Susie?--Vosh, help Susie: she's caught on a
+splinter."
+
+"I'll help her."
+
+"No, you needn't. There, it isn't torn much.--Now, Pen, do you think the
+oxen can pull such a load as this?"
+
+"Of course they can."
+
+In a minute or so more, Susie began to have new ideas about the
+management of oxen, and how strong they were, and how wonderfully
+willing. They seemed to know exactly what to do, with a little help from
+Vosh and his long whip. When all was ready, and they bowed their horns,
+and strained against their yokes with their powerful necks, it seemed as
+if they could have moved any thing in the world.
+
+One long strain, a creaking sound, and then a sudden giving-way and
+starting, and the snow began to crunch, crunch, beneath the wide, smooth
+runners of the sleigh. Vosh walked beside his team, and drove it away
+around in a semicircle, carefully avoiding trees and stumps, until he
+and his load were once more in the road, and on their way home.
+
+"Hark!" exclaimed Susie just then. "Was that the report of a gun, or was
+it the sound of another tree falling?"
+
+"Guess it was a gun," said Vosh. "It's one of the boys shooting at
+something. Plenty of game, if they can hit it."
+
+If they had been listening with any kind of attention, they might have
+heard a similar sound before, although the place where the boys were was
+at some distance from what Vosh called "the clearing."
+
+Corry and Porter had pushed on after Ponto as best they could; but he
+had not stirred up for them any game in the thick, gloomy forest.
+
+"No rabbits here," said Porter.
+
+"Sometimes there are a few," said Corry; "but this isn't the place.
+We're most there now: we'd better load up."
+
+"The guns,--aren't they loaded?"
+
+"No. We never leave a charge in. Father says a gun's always safe when
+it's empty."
+
+Corry put the butt of his gun on the ground while he spoke, and Porter
+watched him narrowly.
+
+"That's his powder-flask," he said to himself. "I might have known that
+much. The powder goes in first: of course it does."
+
+He had never loaded a gun in all his life, and his experience with the
+axe had made him feel a little cautious. Still he tried to make quick
+work of it; and, when Corry began to push down a wad of paper after the
+powder, his city cousin did the same thing, only he was a little
+behindhand, and he put in a much bigger wad of paper.
+
+"How he does ram it! So will I," Porter remarked.
+
+"Don't put too many shot into that gun. I'll measure 'em for you. You'll
+know next time. It scatters too much if you overcharge it."
+
+Porter was wondering at that very moment how many shot he had better put
+in, or whether he should try the big shot from one side of his
+shot-pouch, or the smaller shot from the other.
+
+"What are the big ones for?" he asked, when he saw Corry choose the
+smaller size.
+
+"Buckshot? Oh! you can kill almost any thing with buckshot,--deer, or
+even bear."
+
+"Can you? I never used 'em. Thought they were big for rabbits."
+
+He was glad to know his gun was correctly loaded, however; and he
+imitated Corry in putting on the caps for both barrels, as if he had
+served a long apprenticeship at that very business.
+
+"We haven't reached the swamp yet, have we?"
+
+"No, but we have a'most. It's a great place for rabbits, when you get
+there. Halloo! Ponto's started one! Come on, Port!"
+
+They did not really need to stir a foot, for the swift little animal the
+dog had disturbed from his seat among the bushes was running his best
+right toward them.
+
+"There he is!" shouted Porter.
+
+"Try him, Port."
+
+"No, you try him."
+
+Corry's gun was at his shoulder, and in another second the bright flash
+leaped from the muzzle.
+
+"Did you hit him? He didn't stop running: he kept right on."
+
+"Missed him, I guess. Too many trees, and it was a pretty long shot."
+
+"Why, it didn't seem far."
+
+"Didn't it? That's 'cause it was over the snow: it was more'n ten rods.
+Hark! hear Ponto!"
+
+The old dog was barking as if for dear life, and the boys ran as fast as
+the snow would let them. They had not far to go before they could see
+Ponto dancing around the foot of a huge beech-tree.
+
+"If he hasn't treed him!"
+
+"Treed a rabbit! Why, do you mean they can climb?"
+
+"Climb! Rabbits climb! I guess not. But that tree's hollow. See that
+hole at the bottom? The rabbit's in there, sure."
+
+"Can we get him?"
+
+"We'll try, but it won't pay if it takes too long,--just one rabbit."
+
+Porter Hudson had a feeling that it would be worth almost any thing in
+the world to catch that rabbit. He hardly knew how to go to work for it;
+but he felt very warm indeed while his cousin stooped down and poked his
+arm deeper and deeper into the hole in the tree. It did not go down, but
+up; and it was a pretty big one at its outer opening.
+
+"Is it a hollow tree, Corry?"
+
+"Guess not, only a little way up."
+
+"Can you feel him?"
+
+"Arm isn't long enough."
+
+Ponto whimpered, very much as if he understood what his master was
+saying. That was probably not the first runaway game which had
+disappointed him by getting into a den of safety of one kind or another.
+
+"Hey, Port! Here he comes!"
+
+"Got him, have you?"
+
+"There he is."
+
+Corry withdrew his arm as he spoke, and held up in triumph a very large,
+fat, white rabbit.
+
+"You did reach him."
+
+"No, I didn't. Some of my shot had hit him, and he came down the hole of
+his own weight. Don't you see? They didn't strike him in the right place
+to tumble him right over: he could run."
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Porter: "he won't run any more now."
+
+It was of small use to pity that rabbit, when the one thought uppermost
+in his mind was that he could not go home happy unless he could carry
+with him another of the same sort, and of his own shooting.
+
+Corry loaded his gun again, and on they went; but pretty soon he
+remarked,--
+
+"We're in the swamp now, Port."
+
+"I don't see any swamp: it's all trees and bushes and snow."
+
+"That's so, but there's ice under the snow in some places. You can't get
+through here at all in the spring, and hardly in summer. It's a great
+place for rabbits."
+
+Ponto was doubtless aware of that fact, for he was dashing to and fro
+most industriously.
+
+There were plenty of little tracks on the snow, as the boys could now
+plainly see; but they crossed each other in all directions, after a
+manner that puzzled Porter Hudson exceedingly.
+
+"How will he find out which one of them he'd better follow up?"
+
+"Wait, Port: you'll see."
+
+Porter was taking his first lesson as a sportsman, and was peering
+anxiously behind trees and in among the nearest bushes. Suddenly he saw
+something, or thought he saw it, which made him hold his breath and
+tremblingly lift his gun.
+
+"Can that be a real rabbit," he thought, "sitting there so still?"
+
+He did not utter a loud word; and the first Corry heard about it was
+from both barrels of his cousin's gun, fired in quick succession. Bang,
+bang! they went.
+
+"What is it, Port?"
+
+"I've got him! I've got him!"
+
+He was bounding away across the snow, and disappeared among some thick
+hazel-bushes. A moment more, and he was out again, with a rabbit in his
+hand every ounce as big as the one Corry had killed.
+
+"First-rate, Port! Was he running?"
+
+"No, he was sitting still, and listening for something."
+
+Corry was too polite to say that no regular sportsman fired at a rabbit
+unless it was running. It would have been a pity to have dampened Porter
+Hudson's tremulous exultation over his first game.
+
+He held that rabbit up, and looked at it, until he grew red in the face.
+
+He had no time to talk then; for he had his gun to load, and he was in
+no small anxiety as to whether he should succeed in getting the charge
+in rightly. Besides, there was Ponto racing across the farther side of
+the swamp, with a big rabbit just ahead of him. He was a capital jumper,
+that rabbit, and he was gaining on his barking pursuer when he ran out
+within range of Corry Farnham's gun.
+
+Only one barrel was fired, but Ponto's master was ahead again.
+
+"Two to my one," said Porter.
+
+"You'll have chances enough. Don't you let off both barrels every time,
+though, or you may lose some of 'em. Fill your rabbits all full of shot,
+too, like that one."
+
+Port's idea had been that both barrels of his gun were there for the
+purpose of being fired off, but he was quite ready to take a hint. He
+had more and more serious doubts, however, about his ability to hit a
+rabbit on the run. The first time he actually tried to do it, he doubted
+more than ever. His chance and his disappointment came to him a little
+after Corry's gun was loaded, and while they were crossing the swamp.
+
+"I must have hit him," he said, as he lowered his gun, and looked after
+the rabbit he had fired at, and which was still clearing the snow with
+long, vigorous jumps.
+
+"Well, if you did," said Corry, "he hasn't found it out yet."
+
+"Your first one didn't find out he was hit till he got into the tree."
+
+"That's so. But I never knew it to happen just so before. Ponto's after
+that one again! He's turned him around those sumach-bushes. He's coming
+this way. Give him your other barrel. Shoot ahead of him."
+
+Porter was positive, in his own mind, that he could not hit that rabbit,
+and he felt himself blushing as he raised his gun; but he tried to see
+the rabbit somewhere beyond the end of it, and then he blazed away.
+
+"I declare! you've done it! A good long distance too."
+
+It was so very long, that the shot had scattered a great deal, and one
+of the little leaden pellets had strayed in the direction of that
+rabbit,--just one, but it was as good as a dozen, for it had struck in a
+vital spot; and Porter was as proud as if the skin of his game had been
+filled with shot-holes.
+
+"I'm even with you now."
+
+"That's so. If you only had practice, you'd shoot well enough."
+
+Almost two hours went by, after that, and they tramped all over the
+swamp. Porter killed another sitting rabbit; but Corry was again one
+ahead of him, and was feeling half sorry for it, when he suddenly
+stopped marching, and lifted his hand, exclaiming,--
+
+"Hear Ponto! Hark! Away yonder!"
+
+"Started another rabbit."
+
+"No, he hasn't. It isn't any rabbit this time."
+
+"What is it? What is it?"
+
+"Hear that jumping? Hear Ponto's yelp? It's a deer."
+
+"Deer! Did you say it was a deer? Can you tell?"
+
+"Hark! Listen!"
+
+Ponto was no deer-hound. He was somewhat too heavily built for that kind
+of sport; but any deer of good common sense would get away from his
+neighborhood, all the same. The certainty that the dog could not catch
+him would not interfere with his running.
+
+Ponto's discovery was a really splendid buck, and he was in a terrible
+hurry when his long, easy bounds brought him out from among the
+forest-trees into the more open ground in the edge of the swamp. Porter
+thought he had never before seen any thing half so exciting, but the
+buck went by like a flash.
+
+Just half a minute later, Corry turned ruefully to his cousin, and asked
+him,--
+
+"Port, what did you and I fire both barrels of our guns for?"
+
+"Why, to hit the deer."
+
+"At that distance? And with small shot too? If they'd reached him,
+they'd hardly have stung him. Let's go home."
+
+Porter was ready enough; and it was not long before even Ponto gave up
+following the buck, and came panting along at the heels of his master.
+He looked a little crestfallen, as if he were nearly prepared to
+remark,--
+
+"No use to drive deer for boys. I did my duty. No dog of my size and
+weight can do more."
+
+They had a tramp before them. Not that they were so far from home, but
+then it was one long wade through the snow until they reached the road;
+and Porter Hudson knew much more about the weight of rabbits by the time
+he laid his game down at the kitchen-door of the farmhouse.
+
+They had been growing heavier and heavier all the way, until he almost
+wished he had not killed more than one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WINTER COMFORT.
+
+
+Susie and Pen had a grand ride to the farmhouse on the wood-sleigh.
+
+Perched away up there on top of the brushwood, they could get the full
+effect of every swing and lurch of the load under them. Vosh Stebbins
+had to chuckle again and again, in spite of his resolute politeness; for
+the girls would scream a little, and laugh a great deal, when the sleigh
+sank suddenly on one side in a snowy hollow, or slid too rapidly after
+the oxen down a steeper slope than common. It was great fun; and, when
+they reached the house, Susie Hudson almost had to quarrel with aunt
+Judith to prevent being wrapped in a blanket, and shoved up in a big
+rocking-chair into the very face of the sitting-room fireplace.
+
+"Do let her alone, Judith," said aunt Farnham. "I don't believe she's
+been frost-bitten."
+
+"I'm not a bit cold."
+
+"I'm real glad o' that," said aunt Judith; "but ain't you hungry?--Pen,
+you jest fetch up some krullers."
+
+Susie admitted that she could eat a kruller, and Pen had no need to be
+told twice.
+
+When Vosh came back from the woods with his second load, it was
+dinner-time; and Deacon Farnham came with him. Only a few minutes later,
+there was a great shouting at the kitchen-door, and there were the two
+boys. The whole family rushed out to see what they had brought home, and
+Susie thought she had never seen her brother look quite so tall.
+
+"Corry beat ye, did he?" said Vosh as he turned the rabbits over.
+Something in the tone of that remark seemed to add, "Of course he did;"
+and Port replied to it,--
+
+"Well, he's used to it. I never fired a gun before in all my life."
+
+That was a frank confession, and a very good one to make; for the deacon
+exclaimed,--
+
+"You never did! I declare! then you've done tip-top. You'll make a
+marksman one of these days."
+
+"I hit two of my rabbits on the full run, anyhow."
+
+"How about the deer?" said Vosh with a sly look. "Did you hit him on the
+run?"
+
+"When you meet him," said Corry, "you can just ask him. He's the only
+fellow that knows: I don't."
+
+"Like as not he doesn't either."
+
+"Vosh," said Mrs. Farnham, "tell your mother to come over with you after
+tea, and spend the evening."
+
+"She'll come: I know she will. I'll finish my chores early."
+
+He swung his axe to his shoulder, and marched away, very straight, with
+a curious feeling that some city people were looking at him.
+
+The boys and the girls and the older people were all remarkably ready
+for that dinner as soon as it was on the table.
+
+"Pen," said Susie, "I didn't know chopping down trees would make me so
+hungry."
+
+"Yes," said Deacon Farnham, "it's as bad as killing deer. Port and Corry
+are suffering from that. You did your chopping, as they did their
+deer-killing, at a safe distance."
+
+After dinner it was a puzzle to everybody where the time went, it got
+away so fast. Pen took Susie all over the house, and showed her every
+thing in it, from the apples in the cellar to the spinning-wheel that
+had been carried up stairs the day before, and would have to come down
+again to-morrow.
+
+"Aunt Judith's got a pile of wool, Susie. You ought to see it. She's
+going to spin enough yarn to last her all next summer."
+
+"I'll get her to teach me to spin."
+
+"Can you knit? If you can't, I'll teach you how. It's awful easy, as
+soon as you know."
+
+Susie told Pen about her tidies and crochet-work and some other things,
+and was getting a little the best of it, until Pen asked very
+doubtfully,--
+
+"Can you heel a stocking? It's worse, a good deal, than just to narrow
+'em in at the toes. Aunt Judith says there ain't many women nowadays
+that can heel a stocking."
+
+"I'll make her show me how. Dear me, Pen! did you know how late it is?
+Where can all the time have gone to?"
+
+Corry and Porter knew where a part of theirs had gone, after they got
+back from the barns, and delivered to Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith the
+eggs they had found. Corry got out his checker-board, and laid it on the
+table in the sitting-room.
+
+"It's a big one," said Porter. "Where are your men?"
+
+"Hanging up there in that bag. The wooden men got lost. We take
+horse-chestnuts for black men, and walnuts for white ones."
+
+"S'pose you make a king?"
+
+"That's a butternut, if it's black. If it's white, you put on one of
+those chunks of wood."
+
+There was no danger of their getting out of checker-men; but Corry
+Farnham had a lesson to learn.
+
+Porter Hudson knew a great deal more about checkers than he did about
+tree-chopping or rabbits.
+
+Game after game was played, and it seemed to Corry as if his cousin "hit
+some of them on a full run." He got up from the last one they played,
+feeling a very fair degree of respect for Port; and the latter was
+pretty well restored to his own good opinion of himself.
+
+That was something, for all his morning's experiences had been a little
+the other way; and he was not half sure he could again hit a running
+rabbit, if he should have a chance to try.
+
+Susie and Pen had watched them for a while, but both boys had been very
+obstinate in not making any of the good moves Pen pointed out to them.
+
+There were chores to do both before and after tea; and Porter went out
+with Corry, determined on undertaking his share of them.
+
+"Did you ever milk cows, Port?"
+
+"Well, no, I never did; but I guess I could if I tried."
+
+"Well, I guess you'd best not try to-night, but you can learn before you
+go home. Some of our cows are skittish in cold weather."
+
+Port was quite contented, after getting into the cowyard, to let the
+milking be done by some one who knew how; and he had the satisfaction of
+seeing Corry kicked over into the snow--pail, milk, and all--by a
+brindled heifer who had no need of any kind of weather to bring out her
+natural skittishness.
+
+There were pigs and cattle and horses to feed, and supper to be eaten;
+and when, at last, the boys had finished their duties, the rest of the
+family was already gathered in the sitting-room.
+
+Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith had their knitting; and the deacon had a
+newspaper in his lap, with his spectacles lying in the middle of it. It
+seemed, however, the most natural thing in the world, that they should
+all be sitting in a great semicircle in front of the fireplace. The
+night promised to be a cold one, and the fire had been built for it in
+the most liberal manner.
+
+"Corry," said Porter, "what are all those flat-irons and hammers for?"
+
+"Why, to crack nuts. I'm going down cellar to bring 'em up,--butternuts
+and hickory-nuts. There was a big crop of 'em last fall."
+
+"I'll go with you."
+
+"So will I," said Pen. "Come, Susie, and we'll bring up the apples and
+pears and some cider."
+
+"Now, Pen," said aunt Judith, "look out you don't leave the cider
+runnin', like you did once. You may fetch up a cake of maple-sugar, if
+anybody wants any. And don't you tetch them hard russets. They won't be
+fit to eat till spring."
+
+Aunt Judith's instructions continued almost without cessation, till the
+young folk were all at the bottom of the cellar-stairs. Corry and Pen
+carried candles; but the light of these only served to make that cellar
+look ten times larger and darker and more mysterious. It seemed as if it
+had neither sides nor ends; but the heavy black beams overhead were not
+so wonderfully far away. Pen showed Susie bin after bin of carefully
+selected winter apples and pears, and there were half a dozen barrels of
+cider ranged against the wall.
+
+"It's all pretty sweet now, but it'll be hard enough some time. Then
+some of it'll make vinegar."
+
+"What's in the little barrel?"
+
+"Aunt Judith's currant-wine. She says it'll be the best wine in the
+world when it's old enough. Whenever anybody in the Valley gets sick,
+she takes a bottle of it, and goes there."
+
+"She's real good."
+
+"Susie, look at all the mince-pies on the swing-shelf."
+
+"Ever so many!"
+
+Scores of them, for the swing-shelf ran the whole length of the cellar
+right down the middle, and it held double rows of pies all ready to be
+carried up and warmed for use. Susie would have been willing to stay a
+few minutes, and look at the treasures in that cellar; but Corry
+suddenly exclaimed,--
+
+"Port, let's hurry. They've come. Don't you hear Mrs. Stebbins?"
+
+Just a little before that, aunt Judith up stairs had turned to the
+deacon with the remark,--
+
+"Joshaway, I knew she'd come with Vosh. You can always hear her before
+she gets to the gate; leastwise, on a quiet night like this. I remember
+one night it was a-stormin', and the wind blew so hard she got right up
+to the door, and I hadn't heard a sound till she had her hand on the
+latch."
+
+They could hear her now.
+
+"And, Lavawjer, you must just mind one thing: you mustn't talk too much.
+Let them do their own talkin', specially Susie. I can't begin to tell
+what kind of a gal she's growin' up to be, onless I can hear her talk."
+
+"Then Vosh'll have to keep a-givin' his mother somethin' to eat,"
+snapped aunt Judith: "she never stops talkin' any other time."
+
+Mrs. Farnham herself, while the young people were down stairs, had
+thoughtfully walked out into the storeroom adjoining the kitchen, and
+returned with a long-handled wire corn-popper, and a bag of what she
+called "'tucket corn." It was corn with small, round, blue-black
+kernels, that can pop out larger and whiter, for its size, than any
+other kind that grows. There is a legend that the seed of it came
+originally from the island of Nantucket; but it has short "nubbin" ears,
+and even the island Indians must have found it a poor crop for any thing
+but popping.
+
+Mrs. Stebbins was at the door now; and she never dreamed of knocking,
+and waiting out there in the cold until somebody should come to let her
+in. She was hardly over the threshold, before she said, as she loosened
+her shawl,--
+
+"Judith, where is Susie and her brother, and Corry and Pen? They haven't
+gone away somewhere the very first night, have they? Vosh he told me
+they'd be at home, and I just thought I'd come over."
+
+"They're down cellar. They'll be right up in a minute. Now, Angeline,
+you jest take off your hood and sit down.--Vosh, there's a chair. Hadn't
+you better take that popper and set to work?"
+
+"Vosh tells me," continued his mother, "the boys got half a dozen of
+rabbits to-day. I don't care much for rabbits, but their hind-legs'll do
+to brile. And they seen a deer too. I'd ha' thought they might ha' shot
+it, if it was nigh enough. But then, deer isn't anyways like as easy to
+kill as they was when I was a gal. And they was only a couple of boys. I
+do say, now, here they come, and they're makin' racket enough for
+twenty."
+
+They were coming indeed, streaming up out of the cellar, with every pair
+of hands full and a little more; and Mrs. Stebbins did not stop for an
+instant.
+
+"Susie, is that you? Well, now, I must kiss you right away. Vosh said
+you was lookin' real pretty, and so you be; but he ain't always a good
+jedge. I knowed your mother when she wasn't no older'n you be now. She
+was Joshaway Farnham's sister. And so she's gone South for her health,
+and your father's gone with her, and you've come to put in the rest of
+your winter up here?--I do declare, Lavawjer, ef you ain't kerful,
+you'll burn up every kernel of that corn. Don't you stop to talk, and
+gawk around. Jest you tend to your corn-poppin'."
+
+She had managed to get up from her chair and kiss Susie without
+interrupting the steady clack of her tongue; but she was a little out of
+breath for a moment, and sat still and watched them while they deposited
+upon the table the tall brown pitcher of cider, the pans of fruit, and
+the maple-sugar. The young folks had a chance to say a word to Vosh, and
+Corry and Porter each picked up a flat-iron and a hammer. There were
+plenty of nuts ready for them; and the sound of the cracking, and of the
+rattling, bursting corn in the popper, mingled oddly with Susie's
+efforts to answer the rapid inquiries poured upon her by Mrs. Stebbins.
+
+"Now, Susie, I'm glad you've come. You're right from the city, and
+you're a well-grown gal now, and you know all about the fashions. We
+don't hear a word about 'em up here away till they've all come and gone,
+and somethin' else is in fashion. Got to wearin' short dresses, hev
+they? Think of me, or Judith, or your aunt Sarah Farnham, in short
+dresses! Wearin' panners too. I do say! What won't they put on next!
+Last thing they got up was them little skimp skirts for hard times, that
+came so nigh bein' the ruin of the dry-goods men. Didn't take no cloth
+at all.--Lavawjer, you're a-talkin' again. You just tend to your
+pop-corn."
+
+"Now, Angeline," said Mrs. Farnham, "do take an apple, or a pear."
+
+"Yes, Angeline," said aunt Judith, "and here's a plate of popped corn,
+and some nuts.--Joshaway, pour her out a mug of cider.--Pen, go to the
+cupboard and fetch a plate of krullers. It's the coldest kind of a
+night."
+
+"So it is," began Mrs. Stebbins, "but the winters ain't what they used
+to be. No more the butternuts aren't, somehow; but I must say, you make
+out to have good fruit, though how you do it in these times beats me.
+Our trees die out."
+
+Likely as not they did; but the attack had fairly begun, and poor Mrs.
+Stebbins found herself out-numbered. The deacon pressed her with the
+cider, and Mrs. Farnham with the krullers. There was the heaped-up plate
+of snowy white popped corn, and beside it was the tempting little hill
+of cracked hickory-nuts and butternuts. Susie broke off for her a noble
+piece of maple-sugar; and aunt Judith herself took a candle, and went
+down cellar for a couple of the best mince-pies. It was all too much for
+conversation of the kind Mrs. Stebbins delighted in.
+
+"O Vosh!" suddenly exclaimed Susie. "Corry told us this morning about
+the bear you killed last winter."
+
+It was cruel to mention such a thing just as Mrs. Stebbins had lifted a
+kruller, and she began to say,--
+
+"Yes, about that bear. Lavawjer's father"--But she had to pause a
+moment, and Vosh took it up with,--
+
+"No, Susie, I didn't kill him: I guess it was all three of us. He was
+chockfull of lead when he rolled over. We weren't twenty feet from him.
+Deacon Farnham he fired first, and then I did, and Corry; and we all had
+double-barrelled guns, and we didn't one of us miss. But it was a big
+bear"--
+
+"Biggest kind," said Corry, "or he never could ha' lifted a fat hog
+clean out of the pen the way he did."
+
+"I knowed a bear," began Mrs. Stebbins; but aunt Judith interrupted her
+with,--
+
+"Now, Angeline, do take a slice of mince-pie. It's cold, but sometimes
+it's better cold than it is when it's warm."
+
+The pie was too much for the memory of that other bear.
+
+The sound of popping corn and cracking nuts had been almost incessant,
+and the young people had now succeeded in breaking all the ice the fire
+had left in that sitting-room. They were old acquaintances all around,
+and were chatting away merrily among themselves, with less and less
+reference to what might be going forward among the old folk by the
+table.
+
+Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith seemed to keep right along with their
+knitting, whatever else they might be doing. It seemed to do itself, a
+great deal like their breathing. Even the deacon managed to look into
+the corners of his newspaper while he pared an apple, or talked to Mrs.
+Stebbins. The light of the great astral-lamp on the table mingled with
+that from the fireplace in a sort of reddish-golden glow, that flickered
+over the walls and faces in a way to make every thing and every body
+wear a warm, contented, cosey look, that was just the right thing for a
+frosty winter evening.
+
+By and by there came almost a full half-minute of silence, and at the
+end of it Vosh burst out as if an idea had taken him by surprise.
+
+"I do declare! I never saw any thing jollier'n this is, in all my born
+days."
+
+"Vosh," said Corry, "Port can beat you at checkers. You ought to have
+seen the way he beat me to-day. You just try him a game."
+
+"Now, Lavawjer," said his mother from beyond the table, "you kin play
+well enough for way up here, but you can't think of comin' up to sech a
+young feller as Porter Hudson. He'll beat ye, sure."
+
+At all events, he needed no more than that to make him try to do it; and
+Penelope brought out the great square board, and the bag of home-made
+checkers.
+
+It must be confessed, that, after his triumphant experience with Corry,
+Porter Hudson imagined himself to have quite taken the measure of
+up-country skill and science at that game. He sat down to his new trial,
+therefore, with a proud assurance of a victory to come. It would have
+been kind of Corry to have given his cousin the least bit of a warning,
+but that young gentleman had been himself too roughly handled to feel
+very merciful. Besides, he had some very small and lingering doubt as to
+the result, and was willing to wait for it.
+
+He need not have had any doubt, since there was really no room for any.
+Vosh was a born checker-player, and it is never easy to beat a fellow of
+that sort. Nobody ever knows exactly how they do it, and they themselves
+cannot tell. Their spare men get to the king-row, and their calculations
+come out right; and if you are Porter Hudson, and are playing against
+them, you get beaten very badly, and there's no help for you.
+
+Corry watched that game with a suppressed chuckle, but it was a dreadful
+puzzle to Port. Even Pen did not venture to suggest a single good move,
+and the older people talked very quietly.
+
+Mrs. Stebbins was a proud woman when Susie exclaimed,--
+
+"Vosh has won it!"
+
+It was of no use for aunt Judith to say,--
+
+"Won't you have another slice of pie, Angeline, and some more cider?"
+
+Mrs. Stebbins responded,--
+
+"I don't keer if I do. Only I'm afeard it'll make me dream and talk in
+my sleep. Lavawjer always did play checkers mighty spry, but he ain't
+the player his father was when he was a young man. He didn't have no
+time to play checkers after he got to runnin' a farm of his own. Pie?
+Yes, Judith, you've got jest the right knack of makin' mince-pies." And
+while she went on to tell of the various good and bad pies she had seen
+or tasted, all the rest agreed with her about those they were eating. In
+fact, the good things of all sorts went far to reconcile even Porter
+Hudson to his defeat, and Vosh was truly polite about that. In less than
+two minutes he managed to get the other boys, and even the girls,
+talking about hunting, skating, coasting, sleigh-riding, and catching
+fish through the ice.
+
+The evening seemed to melt away, it went so fast; and no one was willing
+to believe how late it was when Mrs. Stebbins began to put on her hood.
+They all saw her and Vosh to the door, and did not close that until the
+gate shut behind the last words the good woman succeeded in sending back
+to them.
+
+It was something about boiled cider in mince-pies, but they failed to
+get it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A WINTER PICNIC-PARTY.
+
+
+The Stebbins farm was not a large one, and neither its house nor barns
+compared well with Deacon Farnham's; but there was a great deal to be
+done in and around them, even in winter. Vosh was a busy boy, therefore,
+the next morning, and his mother was a busy woman; and it was not until
+an hour after breakfast that she said to him,--
+
+"Now, Lavawjer, you jest hitch up that there new red cutter of yourn,
+and fetch it around. I want you to drive me to Benton Village, and, if I
+can't find what I want there, I'm goin' right on to Cobbleville."
+
+Vosh had been thinking up a series of excuses for going over to the
+deacon's, but he made no mention of them; and it was a credit to him
+that his new turnout was so soon standing, all ready, by the front gate.
+
+It was not a bad idea, that his first long drive in it should be with
+his mother; but he had a string of surprises before him that day.
+
+The first came in the fact that his mother was unaccountably silent, and
+that, whenever she did open her lips, she had something to say about
+economy. Then she talked a little of the wickedness and vanity of buying
+or wearing any thing "just for show." City people, she freely declared,
+were doing that very thing all the while, and she was glad enough no one
+alive could accuse her of it.
+
+Vosh was quite sure she was right; but he could not help, when they
+drove by Deacon Farnham's, and he saw the girls at the window, being a
+little glad that his cutter was of so bright a red, and so remarkably
+well varnished.
+
+Benton Village was right down there in the valley, and the sorrel colt
+pulled them there in so short a time that it was no sleigh-ride at all.
+
+Mrs. Stebbins said as much, after she had bought some tea and sugar at
+one store, and some raisins and some coffee at another.
+
+"They haven't got what I want, Lavawjer. You kin drive right along to
+Cobbleville. There never was better sleighin', not even when I was a
+gal."
+
+That was a great deal for her to admit, and Vosh put the colt to his
+very best speed along the well-travelled road to Cobbleville. That was
+several long miles, but they were strangely silent ones.
+
+"Where shall I pull up, mother?" asked Vosh as they drove into the one
+long street of the village.
+
+"You kin make your first stop right there, at old Gillis's harness-shop.
+I want to look at some o' them things in his front winder."
+
+Something or other must have winked at Vosh; for he was out of that
+cutter, and had his colt hitched in front of Gillis's, in about half his
+usual time.
+
+"Lavawjer," she said to him as she paused on the sidewalk, "don't you
+ever buy a thing just for show. You mustn't ever let your vanity get the
+best of you."
+
+Two minutes later she was holding in her right hand a very useful string
+of sleigh-bells, and saying to him,--
+
+"Now, Lavawjer, if you're ever drivin' along after dark, you won't be
+run into. Anybody'll know you're there, by the jingle. I'll kinder feel
+safer about ye."
+
+Vosh thought he had not often seen less vanity in any thing than there
+was in those bells, and he was thinking of going right out to put them
+on the sorrel, when his mother exclaimed,--
+
+"There! that's what I've been a-lookin' for,--that there red
+hoss-blanket, with the blue border and the fringe. Jest tell me what the
+price of it is."
+
+It was only a very little, the best blanket in the shop; and she said to
+her son,--
+
+"I don't know but it's kinder showy. You can't exactly help that. But it
+won't do for you to let that colt of yourn git warm, drivin' him sharp,
+and then let him catch cold when you hitch him. You must take keer of
+him, and see't he has his blanket on. You'll find it mighty useful."
+
+"Guess I will!" said Vosh, with a queer feeling that he ought to say
+something grateful, and didn't know how. He was thinking about it, when
+his mother said to him,--
+
+"That there headstall of yourn is gettin' cracked, and the check-rein
+might break some day. The rest of your harness'll do for a while. It's
+always safe to have your leather in good condition."
+
+No doubt; and the sorrel colt was a different-looking animal when Vosh
+exchanged the head-gear he had worn coming, for the new rig the careful
+Mrs. Stebbins bought for him.
+
+"Now, Vosh, there isn't any thing else I want in Cobbleville, but you
+may drive through the main street, and we'll take a look at the town."
+
+He unhitched the colt, and sprang in after her. The new headstall,
+check-rein, and the bells were already in their places. The brilliant
+blanket was spread across their laps as they sat in the cutter. Vosh
+touched up the sorrel, and all the Cobbleville people who saw that
+turnout dash up the street for half a mile and back again were compelled
+to admit that it was decidedly a neat one.
+
+"Now, Lavawjer," said his mother, "don't you never do nothin' jest for
+show. If you want to take Judith Farnham or her sister, or Penelope, or
+Susie Hudson, out a-sleighin', they won't need to turn up their noses at
+the rig you come after 'em in."
+
+They had all been talking of Vosh and his mother that morning at Deacon
+Farnham's, and it was plain that the good qualities of the Stebbins
+family were fully understood by their next-door neighbors. The boys
+hoped Vosh would come over in the course of the day, but he did not. The
+next day was Saturday, and still he did not come. He was at work in his
+own barn, shelling corn for dear life, to let his mother know how fully
+he appreciated her generosity. He felt that it would take an immense
+deal of hard work to express all he felt about the bells and the
+blanket, not to speak of the bright bits of new harness.
+
+The next day was Sunday, and Deacon Farnham's entire household went to
+meeting down at Benton Village. Almost all they saw of Vosh was when
+they turned around to look at the choir. Susie only did that once, for
+she somehow connected her catching his eye with the fact that he just
+then started on the wrong stanza of the hymn they were singing, and so
+got himself looked at by the choir-leader.
+
+The next day, just after tea, Vosh came over "to have a word with Deacon
+Farnham," and he had an errand of some importance this time. Corry and
+Porter stood by, with their mouths wide open, while he delivered it. He
+was just inside the kitchen-door; and Susie and Pen were sitting on the
+other side of the stove, paring apples.
+
+"There was a man came by to-day from one of the lumber camps way up
+among the mountains. He was on his way to town for supplies and things.
+He says the road to Mink Lake's good enough for a sleigh."
+
+"All the way?" asked the deacon somewhat doubtfully.
+
+"Every inch of it: I asked him. Now, why couldn't we go in for a mess of
+pickerel?"
+
+"And a grand sleigh-ride!" exclaimed Corry.
+
+"And an old-fashioned winter picnic!" added aunt Sarah Farnham. "How
+would you like that, Susie?"
+
+"A winter picnic! I never heard of such a thing. How do you do it? Seems
+to me it would be splendid, if you could."
+
+"A picnic, a picnic!" shouted Pen. "Fishing through the ice, Susie,
+and--and--there's ever so many other things.--Mother, can we go?"
+
+Vosh Stebbins had spoken only about the pickerel, but the larger
+enterprise was what had really been upon his mind. Before he went home
+it had been thoroughly discussed, and pretty well arranged for.
+
+"Corry," said Port after Vosh went away, "what sort of a place is Mink
+Lake?"
+
+"It's the prettiest kind of a lake. It's a great place to go to in
+summer,--just crowded with fish."
+
+"Is it far?"
+
+"About eight or nine miles, right through the woods and around among the
+mountains. Crookedest road you ever saw. It's apt to be snowed up in
+winter; but we haven't had any deep snow yet, and it hasn't drifted
+much, somehow."
+
+"What kind of fish,--trout?"
+
+"Yes, there's trout, but there's more bass and pickerel and perch.
+You're apt to be awfully bothered with pumpkin-seeds in summer."
+
+Port was silent. He wanted to ask about the pumpkins, and how the seeds
+could bother a fellow when he was fishing for trout. After a minute or
+so, he uttered one word,--
+
+"Pumpkin-seeds?"
+
+"Crowds of 'em. They're the meanest kind of fish. Bite, bite, bite, and
+you keep pulling 'em in, all the while you want something bigger."
+
+"Can't you eat 'em?"
+
+"Yes, they're good to fry, but they're full of bones. Not enough of
+'em."
+
+"They won't bite in winter, will they?"
+
+"Hope not. Tell you what, Port, we're in for the biggest kind of a
+time."
+
+That was an exciting evening. Nobody seemed to want to go to bed, and
+the semicircle around the fireplace talked of hardly any thing else but
+fishing and hunting. Deacon Farnham himself came out with some stories
+aunt Judith said she hadn't heard him tell for more than a year. Porter
+and Susie had no stories to tell, but they could listen. The former went
+to bed at last, with a vague feeling that he would rather go to Mink
+Lake. It was a good while before he got to sleep, and even then he had a
+wonderful dream. He dreamed he was trying to pull a fish as large as a
+small whale through a sort of auger-hole in some ice. He pulled so hard,
+he woke himself up; but he could roll over and go to sleep soundly, now
+the fish was gone.
+
+The house was early astir in the morning; and Deacon Farnham's long, low
+box-sleigh, drawn by his two big black horses, was at the door by the
+time they were through breakfast. Mrs. Farnham had decided not to go,
+because, as she said,--
+
+"It's Judith's turn. Somebody's got to stay and keep house."
+
+It had required some argument to persuade aunt Judith that it was her
+duty to go, but she had taken hold of the preparations with a will. It
+was wonderful what an amount of wrapping-up she deemed necessary for
+herself and all the rest.
+
+"Why, Judith," said the deacon, "it's a good deal warmer in the woods
+than it is out here."
+
+"I've heerd tell so, and mebbe it's true, but I don't put any trust in
+it. I've no notion of bein' frost-bit before I get back."
+
+There was little to be feared from the frost, with all the buffalo-robes
+and blankets and shawls and cloaks that were piled into that sleigh.
+
+When its passengers were in, they made quite a party. There was the
+deacon (who insisted on driving), and aunt Judith, and Mrs. Stebbins and
+Vosh, and Corry, and Susie Hudson and Porter, and Penelope, in the
+sleigh, with Ponto all around outside of it; besides all the baskets of
+luncheon, the fishing-tackle, axes, and guns.
+
+"You can't shoot fish," said Susie.
+
+"May shoot something else," said Vosh. "There's no such thing as
+telling. It's a wild place."
+
+"Susie!" exclaimed Pen, "didn't you know there were deer up at Mink
+Lake,--real deer?"
+
+"Corry," whispered Port, "let's get one before we come home."
+
+"Father's got his gun by him, all ready, but he won't let us get ours
+out till we reach the lake. He may get a shot at something as he drives
+along."
+
+There was a sharp lookout for all kinds of wild animals, after the way
+began to wind among the piny woods, and through the desolate-looking
+"clearings" left by the choppers. The road was found even better than
+Vosh's news had reported it, and the black team pulled their merry load
+along quite easily.
+
+The young folk soon got over the solemn feeling which came upon them
+when they found themselves actually in the great forest.
+
+It was delightful to shout, and listen for echoes; and to sing, and know
+there was not a living pair of ears to hear, except those in the sleigh,
+and Ponto's.
+
+It was about two hours after they left the farmhouse, and Port had just
+remarked,--
+
+"Seems to me we've been going up hill all the time," when Corry suddenly
+exclaimed,--
+
+"There it is! That's Mink Lake. It'll be down hill all the way going
+home. See it!"
+
+"Lake!" said Port. "I don't see any lake. Oh, yes, I do! It's all ice
+and snow,--frozen clean over."
+
+"And we haven't seen a single deer yet," said Susie sorrowfully.
+
+"You can see some now, then," replied Vosh as he eagerly pointed
+forward. "See 'em, Susie? See 'em? Way down yonder on the ice."
+
+"I see them!" shouted Pen. "One, two, three, _four_ of 'em."
+
+"Those black specks?" said Susie.
+
+There they were indeed, and they were beginning to move rapidly across
+the ice; but they were too far away for any thing more than just to make
+out what they were.
+
+Even Ponto continued to plod along soberly behind the sleigh. He was too
+old a dog to excite himself over any such distant and impossible game as
+that.
+
+Deacon Farnham seemed to know exactly what he was about; for he drove
+right on where nobody else could see any road, until he stopped in front
+of a very small and very rudely made kind of house.
+
+"Aunt Judith," asked Susie, "did anybody ever live here?"
+
+"Live here, child? Why, that there's a choppers' shanty. It's for
+anybody that wants it, now they've done with it."
+
+That was so, but it was not for the mere human beings of that
+picnic-party. The deacon took his horses from the sleigh, and led them
+in through the rickety door.
+
+"They're a little warm," he said, "but they won't catch cold in there.
+I'll give 'em a good feed, Vosh, while you're starting a fire.--Get the
+guns and tackle out, Corry."
+
+Vosh had had a hard struggle with himself that morning to leave his own
+horse and cutter at home; but his mother had settled it for him. She
+remarked,--
+
+"I'd ruther be in the big sleigh with the folks, so I can hear what's
+goin' on. So would Susie Hudson, or aunt Judith Farnham. You'd be kind
+o' lonely. Besides, that little thing of yourn 'd be upsettin' twenty
+times, over them mountain roads."
+
+He was ready with his axe now; and Porter Hudson opened his eyes at the
+rapidity with which a great fire was blazing on the snow, a little
+distance from the shanty.
+
+"What are we to get into?" asked Port.
+
+"We won't need any shelter," said aunt Judith. "When it's time for
+dinner, we can eat it in the sleigh."
+
+They were not yet thinking of eating. The first business on hand was a
+trip to the lake. Vosh Stebbins took his axe with him, and he and the
+deacon each carried a long, wide board. Port managed not to ask what
+these were for, and he had not a great while to wait before he knew.
+
+"Vosh," said the deacon, "the ice must be pretty thick. Hope we sha'n't
+have to chop a hole."
+
+"There's one air-hole, away yonder. It doesn't look too wide."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if it'd do."
+
+"Susie," said Pen, "don't you know? That's where all the fish come up to
+the top to get a breath of fresh air."
+
+There was some truth in Pen's explanation, in spite of the laugh she got
+from Mrs. Stebbins. Susie said nothing, for she was all eyes at that
+moment. She thought she had never seen any thing stranger or more
+beautiful than that little lake, all frozen, with the hills around it,
+and the mountains beyond them. The broken slopes of the hills and
+mountains were covered with white snow, green pines, spruces, hemlocks,
+and with the brownish gray of the other trees whose leaves had fallen
+from them. It was very wonderful and new to a young lady from the city.
+
+"Most half the lake," said Vosh, "is smooth enough to skate on. If I'd
+ha' thought of that, I'd ha' brought along my skates."
+
+It would have been worth while. Mink Lake was what some people call a
+"pond," and was hardly a mile wide by an irregular mile and a half long.
+There was an immense skating-rink there now, in spite of the snow which
+covered a large part of it.
+
+Susie was just about to ask some more questions, when her uncle
+shouted,--
+
+"This'll do, Vosh! Bring along your slide."
+
+That was the board he was carrying, and its use was plain now. The
+air-hole was an opening in the ice, not more than two feet across, but
+the ice was thin at the edges of it. A heavy man, or a busy one, might
+break through, and let himself into a cold bath; but when those two
+"slides" were slipped along on either side of the hole, any one could
+walk right out, and drop in a hook and line safely enough.
+
+"There, Susie," said Pen, "now we can keep our feet dry while we catch
+our fish."
+
+"Now, folks!" exclaimed the deacon. "Two at a time. We'll take turns."
+
+"Your turn's good till you've hooked a fish," said Vosh to Porter, as he
+handed him a line. "You and the deacon try it first."
+
+It seemed very easy,--nothing to do but to stand on a dry board, and
+drop a line with a baited hook at the end of it through a two-foot hole
+in the ice. There was no long waiting to be done either.
+
+"Father, father!" shouted Pen in a few moments. "You've got him!" There
+was a sort of electric shock went through the entire picnic; but the
+deacon jerked out a very good-looking fish with an unthankful look on
+his face.
+
+"Nothing but a perch. He's a pound and a quarter, though.--Here, Mrs.
+Stebbins, take that other line, and see what you can do."
+
+Mrs. Stebbins had talked quite industriously all the way, and even after
+they got upon the ice; but she stopped short the moment she took hold of
+that line. She had hardly dropped it in, before Porter Hudson
+exclaimed,--
+
+"Corry, Corry!"
+
+"Pull, Port! Pull! You've got a big one."
+
+"So have I," screamed Mrs. Stebbins. "Deacon!--Vosh! It's awful! Come
+help me!"
+
+"Pen," said Susie, "could it pull her through the hole?"
+
+"Why, Susie!"
+
+Pen's eyes and mouth were wide open; for both her cousin and Mrs.
+Stebbins were leaning back, and it seemed as if something down below
+were jerking at them.
+
+"Wind it round your wrist, Port," said Corry. "Hang on!"
+
+"Now, mother," said Vosh as he took hold of her line, "I declare, you
+_have_ hooked a good one. I guess I'll pull him in for you."
+
+It hardly seemed to cost him an effort to bring a great three-pound
+pickerel through the hole, and sling him out upon the ice.
+
+"That's better than perch, deacon."
+
+"Shall I help you, Port?" asked Corry.
+
+"No, sir-e-e-e! I'll bring in my own fish."
+
+"Hand over hand! Don't let him get away from you."
+
+Port's blood was up, now he had seen that other pickerel landed, and he
+pulled with all his might.
+
+"Now lift," said Vosh. "Don't let him rub his nose against the ice, or
+he'll break loose. Don't lean over too far. That's it."
+
+It was splendidly exciting; and Port followed the directions given him,
+although his heart was beating quickly, and he thought he had never
+lifted any thing else quite so heavy as that fish.
+
+"Out he comes!" he shouted.
+
+"Hurrah for Port!" said aunt Judith. "It's the biggest one yet."
+
+So it was; and a proud boy was Porter Hudson when Deacon Farnham
+declared that the great fish he had fought so hard with was a
+seven-pound pickerel.
+
+"Now, aunt Judith, it's your turn next."
+
+"Me, Corry? Me? What could I do with a cretur like that?"
+
+"I'll help you if you get a big one. Here's your line: you must try."
+
+She had to be coaxed a little more, but she consented, and Susie herself
+took the other line. The fish were biting hungrily; for in less than a
+minute aunt Judith gave a little scream and a jerk, and began to pull in
+her line; then another little scream and another jerk, and then,--
+
+"Perch!" she exclaimed. "Ain't I glad it wasn't a pickerel!--Penelope,
+you can ketch the rest of my fish for me. I'll just look on."
+
+Susie's face grew almost pale, as she stood there with her line in her
+hand, waiting for something to pull on it.
+
+"Do they nibble first, Vosh?"
+
+Hardly were the words out of her mouth, before her line was suddenly
+jerked away from her. Vosh had just time to catch hold of the piece of
+wood the rest of it was wound upon.
+
+"I've lost him, I've lost him!"
+
+"No, you haven't, but he's running pretty well. Guess I'd better snub
+him. He'd have cut your fingers with the line if you'd ha' tried."
+
+Susie's soft white hands were hardly suited to work of that sort, and
+they were already getting a little cold. She was quite willing to pick
+up her muff, and slip them into it while Vosh pulled in her pickerel for
+her. It was a right good one too, only a little less weighty than
+Porter's.
+
+Pen had now taken the line from aunt Judith, and she dropped her hook in
+very confidently.
+
+"There isn't a scrap of bait on it," said Corry.
+
+"Isn't there? I forgot that. Just wait a minute, and then I'll let you
+put some on."
+
+Corry and the rest began to laugh, but Pen shouted again,--
+
+"He's nibbling! Now he's biting! Oh, he's bit!"
+
+So he had, bait or no bait; and she was quite strong enough to pull up a
+very handsome perch without help from anybody.
+
+After that, Deacon Farnham and the boys had the fishing all to
+themselves. It was well there was enough of it to make it exciting; for
+it was wet, cold, chilly work. The fish were of several sorts and all
+sizes; and some of them rubbed themselves free against the icy edges of
+the hole, in spite of all that could be done. Before noon there was a
+considerable pile of them lying on the ice, and the fun of catching them
+had lost a little of its power to keep the cold away.
+
+Long before the fishermen decided that they had caught enough, Mrs.
+Stebbins and aunt Judith and the girls got tired of looking on, and set
+out across the ice towards the sleigh and the very attractive-looking
+fire. The latter had been well heaped up at first, and was now blazing
+vigorously.
+
+"We must have a good dinner ready for 'em," said aunt Judith when she
+turned away,--"all the fish they can eat."
+
+"You carry one," said Mrs. Stebbins: "I'll take a couple more. The girls
+can help. We'll brile 'em, and we'll fry 'em, and we'll roast 'em in the
+ashes."
+
+She tried to think of some other way, but she could not. She and aunt
+Judith were excellent cooks, and knew just what to do with fresh fish
+and such a fire. It was by no means their first picnic either, and the
+right things to cook with had not been left at home. Susie and Pen
+entered into the spirit of it with a vast deal of enthusiasm, but they
+were quite contented to let the more experienced cooks clean the fish.
+
+"We're having the splendidest kind of a time, ain't we?" said Pen.
+
+"Splendid! It's the first winter picnic I ever heard of."
+
+"I never had one before, but I've heard mother tell of 'em."
+
+There was plenty to do; and when at last the fishermen gave up dropping
+lines through the air-hole, and came plodding slowly back across the
+ice, there was all the dinner they could reasonably ask for, hot and
+smoking, and ready for them.
+
+Such noble strings of fish they were dragging after them, and such
+hearty appetites they brought to that tempting "spread"!
+
+There was hot coffee to be drank out of tin cups, fish in several styles
+of cookery, crisp fried pork, roasted potatoes, bread and butter, and
+last of all was some cold meat that nobody seemed to care for.
+
+"Will there be any dessert?" asked Port.
+
+"Aunt Judith's got some mince-pies warming on the log by the fire."
+
+"What a dinner for the woods!"
+
+"Woods! Why, the choppers have fresh fish and potatoes and coffee all
+the while, and sometimes they have venison."
+
+"Game," said Port, "but no pie."
+
+"Vosh," said Susie, "what has become of all your deer?"
+
+Just at that moment they heard old Ponto barking away at a great rate in
+the woods near by; and Vosh sprang up, exclaiming,--
+
+"He's treed something!"
+
+"Guess he has," said the deacon. "Get your guns, boys. Load with
+buckshot."
+
+"Mine's loaded," said Vosh.
+
+"Mine'll be ready in a minute," said Corry. "Quick now, Port!"
+
+"Hold on," said the deacon. "We must all have a share in the fun, if
+there is any."
+
+It seemed to Susie and Pen that they could hardly wait for those two
+guns to be loaded; and Mrs. Stebbins exclaimed,--
+
+"Judith, I do hate a gun; but I'm a-goin' with 'em. Ain't you?"
+
+"Course I am. Just hark to that there dog!"
+
+He must have shared in the general impatience, to judge by the noise he
+was making; and now there came another and a very curious kind of sound
+from that direction.
+
+"It's a baby crying," said Pen.
+
+"Or a cat," began Port.
+
+"Sakes alive!" exclaimed Mrs. Stebbins. "I do believe the critter's gone
+and treed a wildcat."
+
+"I guess that's it," said the deacon.
+
+It was indeed that precisely.
+
+They all kept together, as they waded through the snow to a spot about
+twenty rods into the woods, from which they could see old Ponto bounding
+hither and thither around the trunk of a tall maple-tree that stood by
+itself in the middle of an open space in the forest.
+
+"No other tree handy for him to jump into," said Vosh. "There he is!"
+
+"Where?" asked aunt Judith.
+
+"See him? Up there on that big lower limb!"
+
+"It's a good forty feet from the ground," said the deacon. "Come on,
+boys.--All the rest stay here."
+
+"O Pen!" said Susie, "I do believe I'm afraid. Will he jump?"
+
+"They'll shoot him down, and then Ponto'll grab him."
+
+"He'd make short work of one dog, if he once got at him," said Corry.
+"Too much for Ponto."
+
+There was little doubt of that, for it was a wildcat of the very largest
+size; not so dangerous an animal as a panther, but a terribly hard
+scratcher, and apt to require a great deal of killing.
+
+He seemed even larger than he really was, as he drew himself up on the
+long, bare limb of the tree, and looked down so savagely upon his
+barking enemy.
+
+It may be that the smell of the cookery, particularly of the fish, had
+tempted him so near the picnic. Then Ponto had scented him in turn, and
+had chased him into that solitary tree.
+
+"Now, boys," said Deacon Farnham, "all around the tree! Fire as soon as
+you can after I do, but keep your second barrels. We may have to give
+him more lead, even if we knock him down."
+
+Porter Hudson knew he was not one bit scared, and wondered why he should
+shake so when he tried to lift his gun and take aim. He was sure he
+could not shoot straight, and hoped the shot would scatter well.
+
+"Now, boys!" Bang! went the deacon's gun; and the other three followed,
+aim or no aim. The wildcat replied with an angry scream, and began to
+tear the bark of the limb with his sharp, strong claws. How they would
+have gone through any kind of flesh!
+
+That was only for a second or so; and then he suddenly gathered himself
+for a spring at the spot nearly under him, where Ponto was furiously
+barking.
+
+Alas for the great cat of the woods! Too many buckshot had struck him,
+and he fell short of his mark in the snow.
+
+Vosh had been watching, and he was nearest. Hardly did the wounded
+animal reach the snow, before Susie saw Vosh spring forward, and fire
+the second barrel of his gun.
+
+"He's a real brave fellow."
+
+"So he is," said Pen and aunt Judith; but Mrs. Stebbins was too proud of
+her boy to say a word.
+
+That was very nearly enough. Corry ran forward, and Porter after him,
+and the deacon followed; but Ponto was ahead of them all, and it would
+not do to fire at any risk of shooting the brave old dog.
+
+There was no fight left in the wildcat when Ponto's teeth were buried in
+his neck; and he therefore had all the fun and glory of a great shaking
+and growling and worrying, without any danger of being scratched.
+
+"Drop him, Ponto, drop him!" said the deacon. "I don't want that skin
+spoiled: it's a fine one. We didn't put as many shot into him as I
+thought we would."
+
+He was killed now, surely enough, however, and Vosh could carry him to
+the sleigh; and they could all go back, and eat more pie, and talk about
+bears and wolves and panthers, till the two girls felt like looking
+around at the woods to see if any of that sort of people were coming.
+
+"We don't need any more fish," said aunt Judith: "we've more'n enough
+for the whole neighborhood."
+
+"No, we don't," said the deacon. "What's more, it looks some like a
+snow-storm. We'd best be packing up for home."
+
+Even that was grand fun; but it seemed almost a pity to leave so good a
+fire behind them to burn itself out all alone there in the snow, with
+nobody to sit around it, and cook, and tell stories.
+
+"It's a waste of wood," remarked aunt Judith regretfully.
+
+If the road had been "all up hill" coming to the lake, it was just as
+much all down hill going home again; and that sleigh-ride was about as
+good as any other part of the picnic.
+
+They all thought so until they reached the farmhouse, and found what a
+splendid supper Mrs. Farnham had prepared for them. It was very nearly a
+wonder to all of them, afterwards, how it was possible they should have
+been so very ravenously hungry twice in the selfsame day.
+
+"I guess it's the picnic," said Pen.
+
+"No," said Corry, "that wouldn't be enough: it's the wildcat."
+
+Deacon Farnham and the boys spent a great deal of time that evening over
+the skin of the wildcat. There was some talk of having it stuffed; but,
+on mature deliberation, that idea was given up. One reason was that
+nobody in that neighborhood knew how. Aunt Judith doubted if that fine
+specimen of wild fur would ever be of any mortal use, but Susie came to
+the rescue with an old new idea.
+
+"Why, aunt Judith," she said, "when it's all finished, there can be a
+fringe put on all around, and some strong canvas on the under side, and
+it would make a lamp-mat for a centre-table. I saw one once."
+
+"In the city too? What won't they do next! And I suppose they paid a
+high price for it.--Joshaway, you cure the skin, and Sarah and I'll make
+a table-rug of it."
+
+Fresh fish will keep a long time in cold weather, and a good part of the
+day's finny harvest was packed away for home consumption in both houses.
+Still, after supper, and tired as he was, poor Vosh had to pay one
+penalty of so much good luck. He had to hitch up the sorrel, and drive
+to the houses of half a dozen neighbors with presents of bass and
+pickerel and perch from Mink Lake. That was the very neighborly end of
+the grand winter picnic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE DONATION-PARTY.
+
+
+One of the first things learned by Susie and Porter Hudson, on their
+arrival at the farmhouse, had been that the reason why Corry and Pen
+were not attending school was that the teacher was sick.
+
+"Soon as she's well again," said Pen, "we'll have to go. It's too bad,
+but she always gets well right away."
+
+Hard as it was, the very next morning after the picnic, word came to the
+farmhouses all over the valley that school was open.
+
+"Vosh," said his mother, "I can't have ye miss a day, not till you know
+more'n that there teacher does; and you ort to ketch up with her before
+the winter's out."
+
+Some little plans of Vosh's, in which his horse and cutter had a part,
+were upset completely by the teacher's recovery; but the consequences
+were even more severe at Deacon Farnham's.
+
+Corry and Pen were compelled to leave their cousins to take care of
+themselves every day till after school-hours. It was not so bad for
+Susie, with her two aunts to care for her. There was the milk-room and
+the spinning-wheel and the kitchen, and a dozen kinds of knitting to
+learn, and there were many good books in the house. It looked a little
+blue to Porter at first, but he faced it manfully. He determined not to
+spend an hour in the house that he could find a use for out of doors. He
+went with the deacon to the cattle-yard and the stables, and he learned
+more about horses and cows and oxen than he had supposed there was to
+learn.
+
+The sheep, too, were very interesting; especially one old ram that took
+a dislike to him, and was strongly disposed to drive him out of the
+sheepfold every time he came in.
+
+Porter discovered, too, that hens, ducks, turkeys, had to live and be
+cared for in winter as well as in summer; and Susie took a share with
+him in that part of his work and learning.
+
+All that, and a great deal more, was close around the house; and it was
+a positive treat to make a trip, after a couple of days, to the forest
+with his uncle. There was likely to be more snow, the latter said, and
+he wanted to do all the chopping and hauling he could before the roads
+should be blocked. Port wondered if it would be possible to burn, before
+spring, as much wood as there was already in the woodshed; but it just
+suited him to go for more.
+
+The deacon could do the chopping on that and other days, and Port could
+be on hand to help him load the sleigh. The rest of the time, he could
+be helping Ponto look for game around among the trees and bushes.
+
+Between them they bagged some more rabbits, and once Port actually fired
+both barrels of his gun into a covey of partridges.
+
+"Three of 'em?" said his uncle when he brought them in. "You'll be a
+sportsman yet, if you keep on in this way."
+
+That was only three days after the Mink-lake picnic, and a proud boy was
+Port when Corry and Vosh came home. They were not even to have Saturday
+to themselves, for there was lost time to make up over their books.
+
+Aunt Judith said she had never heard of such a thing when she was young;
+and Vosh Stebbins went out to the barn, and sat in his cutter for two
+hours, while he worked at his back lessons.
+
+That Sunday they all went to meeting at Benton Village; and it seemed to
+Susie Hudson that all she heard about, except while the minister was
+preaching, was "the donation." She was not at all sure but what some of
+the ladies were thinking of it during the sermon, from the way they
+talked about it afterwards.
+
+"Pen," she said in the sleigh on their way home, "tell me just what it
+is. I've heard about a donation often enough, but I never saw one."
+
+"Why, don't you know?" exclaimed Pen in great surprise. "Why, a
+donation--it's a donation: that's all. It's a kind of a picnic at the
+minister's house. Everybody comes, and they all bring something. Only
+aunt Judith says some of 'em eat more'n they bring."
+
+"Shall we all go?"
+
+"Of course we will. You'll see. It's the nicest kind of a time."
+
+Susie learned a great deal more during the next two days. Mrs. Farnham
+and aunt Judith seemed to be cooking for that "donation" as if there
+were likely to be a famine there, especially in the matter of
+mince-pies.
+
+"Elder Evans is a real good man," remarked aunt Judith, "but he ain't
+any kind of a pervider. No, nor his wife ain't either. It won't do to
+let things go, and have 'em eaten out of house and home."
+
+They were not likely to be, if the rest of the good people in Benton
+Valley sent over such stores of "goodies" as went to the minister's
+house, before the day appointed, from Deacon Farnham's.
+
+"I've done my best," said Mrs. Stebbins to Vosh while she was putting
+her contribution into his cutter for transportation, "but Sarah Farnham
+and Judith can beat me. Their oven'll hold three times what mine will."
+
+She went over early in the afternoon, to help Mrs. Evans; and she said
+to Vosh, "You needn't mind about my gittin' home. I'll come with Judith
+Farnham."
+
+Perhaps that was why Vosh felt free to say to Susie Hudson, as she stood
+at the gate, telling him how nice his horse and cutter looked,--
+
+"You'll have to go in the deacon's big sleigh with the rest, but you and
+I'll have this all to ourselves coming home."
+
+That was kind of Vosh; and, if there was any thing Susie was fast
+learning to like, it was sleighing.
+
+An old-fashioned, up-country donation-party cannot be altogether an
+evening affair. Some of the good people have far to come and go, and
+some of them have heavy loads to bring: so they generally begin to
+assemble before the middle of the afternoon.
+
+Susie had seen the minister's house several times. It stood in the edge
+of the village, with an immense barn behind it; and it looked, for all
+the world, like another large barn, painted very white, with ever so
+many windows.
+
+"Room," she thought, "for all the company that will come." And it was a
+good thing for them that she was so nearly right. That crowd would have
+been very uncomfortable in a small house.
+
+When the sleigh-load from Deacon Farnham's got there, there was already
+a long line of teams hitched at the roadside in front of the house,
+beside all that had found shed and stable accommodations here and there.
+
+As for Elder Evans's own barn, hay, straw, and all that sort of thing,
+formed a regular part of his annual donation. Load after load had come
+in and been stowed away, after a fashion that spoke well for either the
+elder's popularity or the goodness of the hay-crop.
+
+There was no intention of letting the good man freeze to death, either,
+in a country where wood was to be had almost for the chopping. His
+wood-pile was a sight to see, a good hour before supper, and everybody
+knew there was more to come.
+
+Corry explained it all to Porter.
+
+"Yes, but he can't eat hay and wood. You say he doesn't get much money."
+
+That was a little after they entered the house, and while Mrs. Farnham
+and Susie were talking with the elder's kind-faced little wife.
+
+"Eat!" said Corry. "You come right out here with me."
+
+The sitting-room, back of the parlor, was a large one; but it was nearly
+half full of tables of all sorts and sizes, and these were covered with
+a feast of such liberal abundance that Porter gave it up at once.
+
+"Even this crowd can't finish all that in one evening, Corry. Will Elder
+Evans's folks live on what's left, for the rest of the year?"
+
+"Come right along. Vosh is out here. He's one of the receiving
+committee."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Corry led his cousin into the kitchen, and a funny-looking place it was.
+Something like a dozen busy ladies were trying to get at the cook-stove
+all at the same time; and half as many more were helping Vosh Stebbins
+"keep track of things," as they were handed in at the side-door, and
+stowed around in all directions.
+
+"That makes four bushels of onions," Port heard him say, as he and Corry
+entered the room. "They're a healthy feed--but then!"
+
+"One barrel of flour!" said a tall woman standing near him; "but then,
+there's ten bushels of wheat."
+
+"Three bags of meal, and twenty sacks of corn; fifteen bushels of
+turnips, twenty of potatoes; one dressed pig; a side of beef; two dozen
+chickens."
+
+"Sam Jones has just driven in with another load of wood."
+
+"And Mr. Beans, the miller at Cobbleville, has sent more buckwheat
+flour'n they can use if they settle down to livin' on flapjacks."
+
+"Five muskrat-skins."
+
+"Two kags of butter."
+
+"Hold on," said Vosh, "till I get down the groceries. Jemimy! What'll he
+do with so many tallow-dips? and there's more dried apples and
+doughnuts."
+
+It was indeed a remarkable collection, and Porter began to understand
+how a "way up country" minister gets his supplies.
+
+"Port," said Corry a little while after that, "let's go for our supper.
+We want to be ready for the fun."
+
+"What'll that be?"
+
+"Oh, you'll see."
+
+Susie had been making a dreadful mistake at that very moment; for she
+had asked old Mrs. Jordan, the minister's mother-in-law, if they ever
+had any dancing at donation-parties. She told Port afterwards that the
+old lady looked pretty nearly scared to death, and that all she said
+was,--
+
+"Dancing, child! Sakes alive!"
+
+The house was swarming with young people as well as old, and it was of
+no manner of use for the leader of the Benton church choir to try and
+get them all to singing. A hymn or two went off well enough, and then
+they all listened pretty attentively while a quartet sang some glees. By
+that time, however, Vosh Stebbins had returned from the kitchen with his
+list all made up, and ready for the minister; and he said something to
+another young man, older than himself, but no taller, about "those
+charades." The music went to the wall, or somewhere else, in about a
+minute and a half.
+
+Susie Hudson had never heard of one-half the games that followed after
+the charades. Some of these had been pretty good; but they were hardly
+noisy enough for the country boys and girls, and in due time were set
+aside like the music. There were forfeits of several kinds, anagrams,
+"kiss in the ring," and, after several other things had been proposed
+and tried, the parlor was given up to a royal game of blind-man's-buff.
+
+It was grand fun for the young people; but, while it went on, there
+seemed to be every bit as hungry a crowd as ever around the tables in
+the sitting-room. As fast as any one came out, somebody else went in.
+
+"Deacon Farnham," said Vosh in an undertone, "I've seen that oldest Bean
+girl eat three suppers already."
+
+"It's a good thing there's plenty."
+
+"Biggest kind of a donation. Sile Hathaway's just got here with two
+whole deer. Killed 'em on the mountains yesterday."
+
+The deacon brightened up a little as he responded, "Deer, eh? Well, the
+elder won't starve, anyway."
+
+Susie enjoyed herself exceedingly, but Pen told her,--
+
+"It's real good of you to laugh right out the way you do. They ain't
+half so much afraid of you now as they were when you got here."
+
+"Afraid of me, Pen?"
+
+"Why, yes: you're a city girl. They ain't a bit afraid of me."
+
+Vosh overheard that, and he added with a broad grin,--
+
+"Fact, Susie. Half these fellows'd rather face a wildcat, any day, than
+a girl like you, right from the city."
+
+Susie blushed and laughed, but it was a sort of explanation to her of
+some things she had noticed during the evening.
+
+"Port," said Corry, "let's go out and take a look at Sile Hathaway's
+deer. One's a buck, and one's a doe, and they're prime."
+
+"Is he a hunter?"
+
+"Guess he is. He'd rather hunt than earn a living, any day. But he's
+about the best rifle-shot there is anywhere around here."
+
+Port felt that such a man had a great claim to public respect, but he
+walked on without a word more until they were outside of the
+kitchen-door.
+
+There on the snow lay the fat doe and the antlered buck, and it made
+Porter Hudson's very fingers tingle to look on them.
+
+"Where'd you get 'em, Sile?" asked Corry.
+
+"Not more'n a mile up this way from Mink Lake; jest whar the split comes
+in from towards the old loggin'-camp."
+
+"How'd you get 'em to the village?"
+
+"Well, of course I had my pony along. Allers do. Made a pole-drag right
+thar. I had two more deer to fetch in, and they wasn't more'n jest a
+good load for a drag."
+
+He was a long, lanky, grizzled sort of man, with keen gray eyes, and a
+stoop in his shoulders.
+
+"What's a pole-drag?" asked Port.
+
+"Why," replied Corry, "all he does is to cut down two saplings, and make
+a kind of sled of 'em. It won't last long, but it'll do to haul deer
+home. I'll show you one to-morrow."
+
+Port would have stood and looked at the deer longer if the weather out
+there had been warmer, but he half made up his mind to be a hunter while
+he was feeling of that buck's antlers. There was something magnetic
+about them that sent a hunting-fever all over him.
+
+At last the pleasant gathering at the minister's house began to break
+up. Some sleigh-loads of those who had far to go had already set out for
+their homes, and it was well understood that not even the village people
+and near neighbors would stay later than ten o'clock. Very likely Elder
+Evans and his family would be tired enough to be pleased at once more
+having their home to themselves.
+
+There came at the end a trifle of a surprise to Susie Hudson. The
+country-boys grew bolder as breaking-up time drew near; and she was
+compelled to inform no less than three of them in succession, when they
+offered her a ride home in their own cutters, that she was already
+supplied with company.
+
+She did not happen to see Vosh Stebbins's triumphant grin at one of
+these young men when he was turning away to hunt for another girl, but
+she better understood why her thoughtful young neighbor had spoken to
+her beforehand.
+
+She learned yet one thing more before she arrived at her uncle's house.
+That was, that there were two roads to it, and the one selected by Vosh
+for the return drive was several times longer than that by which Deacon
+Farnham had driven his big sleigh. The snowy track was everywhere in
+fine condition; the sorrel colt was in the best of spirits; the bells
+rang out clearly in a ceaseless jingle as the gay little turnout dashed
+along: it was altogether a capital winding-up for an evening of genuine
+"winter fun" in the country.
+
+There was a great deal of merry talk in the larger sleigh all the way
+home. The older people, Mrs. Stebbins included, were in a good state of
+mind over the success of the party, and Pen had something to say about
+everybody she had seen.
+
+"Corry," said Port as he nestled down among the buffalo-robes, "is there
+any thing up this way that pays better than a donation?"
+
+"I don't know. Tell you what, though: they say we're to have a big
+spelling-match in about two weeks."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Why, it's this way: the Benton school-district takes in all the young
+folks around here. The Cobbleville school-district joins ours, only it's
+bigger, and there's more of 'em. We're to spell against 'em. It's
+tip-top fun; but I'm awfully afraid they'll spell us down. They did last
+year, and the year before."
+
+"Can Susie and I go?"
+
+"Of course you can. We've a right to count in anybody that's living in
+our district."
+
+"I'm in, then. I live here."
+
+"Will Susie come? She ought to be a good speller. The day isn't set yet.
+They were talking it over to-night. We'll have to go to Cobbleville:
+they've got the biggest meeting-house."
+
+"Meeting-house? What for?"
+
+"Why, to hold the match in. It'll be jam full, too, galleries and all.
+Everybody comes out to a spelling-match. You'll see."
+
+Port had no end of questions to ask; but he felt that he was becoming a
+country-boy very fast, and that he already had a strong interest in
+upholding the honor of the Benton school-district.
+
+"Susie?" he said. "Why, of course she'll go. She can spell any thing."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE WORD-BATTLE AT COBBLEVILLE.
+
+
+Penelope was in bed and asleep when Susie returned from the donation. So
+long a road home as Vosh Stebbins had selected, had required time to
+travel over it; and Mrs. Farnham had vetoed Pen's proposal to sit up.
+When they all reached the breakfast-table in the morning, there was a
+great deal to talk about, but it was not long before the spelling-match
+came up.
+
+"Oh, yes! Susie," said Pen, "I was going to tell you all about it. You
+know how to spell."
+
+"They say we can be counted in among the Benton spellers," began Port;
+but there was a very serious look on Susie's face as she said to him,--
+
+"I promised to go; but then, to think of being spelled down!"
+
+"Why, Susie!" exclaimed Pen, "where did you hear of it?"
+
+"Wasn't she at the donation?" asked Corry. "Didn't she ride home with
+Vosh Stebbins? Guess she's heard as much as anybody."
+
+That was not a bad guess; but it soon appeared that Susie was as much in
+earnest over the results of the match as if she were a regular
+Benton-valley settler, instead of a mere visitor.
+
+There was plenty of enthusiasm warming up, but Deacon Farnham seemed
+inclined to throw cold water on their hope of victory. He reminded them
+of the disastrous manner in which their district champions had already
+been defeated twice in succession.
+
+"They've had a pretty good teacher, too, all winter," he said.
+
+"So've we," said Corry; "and some of us have been putting in on our
+spelling more'n any thing else."
+
+"That's good. Maybe they have too. I shouldn't wonder if Vosh was the
+best man you've got."
+
+"Perhaps he is, and perhaps he isn't. Anyhow, we're going to have fair
+play this time. Their teacher isn't going to put out the words. There'll
+be a committee."
+
+"That's better; but I'm afraid there won't be any prize brought back to
+this valley."
+
+"It's a splendid prize!" exclaimed Pen,--"a great big dixinary."
+
+"A dictionary, eh?"
+
+"Yes," said Port; "and all the words spelled are to be given out from
+it."
+
+"Any kind of words?"
+
+"Not exactly. They must be just such words as people use, but they can
+be as long as they can find in the book."
+
+"That won't hurt one side more'n it will the other," said Mrs. Farnham.
+
+"Besides," said Pen, "more of us had to sit down on short words than
+long ones last year."
+
+"Sit down?" asked Port.
+
+"When they missed. You'll see when you get there," replied Corry. "It's
+awful to sit down on a mistake, with a whole meeting-house full of
+people looking at you and laughing."
+
+"I should say it was."
+
+There were four pairs of eyes in that one house, right away after
+breakfast, busy over the long rows of words in some spelling-books, and
+wondering if there were any there they had forgotten.
+
+"I knew 'em all once," said Pen; "but they always look different when
+you're told 'em from the pulpit."
+
+Over at the Stebbins homestead it was very much the same.
+
+"Vosh," said his mother, "you was a dreadful long time at the barn."
+
+"Well, mother, I staid till I'd spelled over every thing I could see.
+There's a good many names to things around a stable, and I spelled every
+one of 'em."
+
+"Did you git 'em right, Vosh?"
+
+"Guess I did."
+
+"Would it do ye any good to have some other kind of spellin'-book, so
+you'd know more words?"
+
+"That isn't the trouble, mother. It kind o' seems to me I know so many
+now, I can't remember half of 'em."
+
+"Don't you git spelled down, now, Vosh. You won't, will ye, not with
+Susie Hudson and her brother a-lookin' on?"
+
+Vosh's face put on a pretty sober expression as he muttered,--
+
+"Guess I wouldn't like that."
+
+The quiet winter days went by rapidly, and nothing came in them to
+interrupt in any way the steadily growing excitement over the great
+spelling-match.
+
+All the arrangements for it were discussed over and over, until at last
+there was nothing more to be settled, and the set day came.
+
+"Corry," said Port, when the sleigh drove to the door after supper, and
+they were hurrying on their overcoats, "seems to me I couldn't spell the
+shortest word I ever heard."
+
+"If you get scared, you'll miss, sure's you live. Now, Port, we've just
+got to beat 'em."
+
+Vosh and his cutter came up at that moment, and Mrs. Stebbins stepped
+out with the remark,--
+
+"Deacon, you must make room for me. I'll swop with Susie. I want a talk
+with Judith and Sarah."
+
+"Come, Susie," said Vosh. "I've been teaching my colt to spell."
+
+There was no spare room in the big sleigh, for the farmhouse was left in
+charge of Ponto and the hired man.
+
+Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith would not for any thing have missed hearing
+for themselves how Penelope and Coriolanus, and Susie and Porter,
+managed their long words at Cobbleville.
+
+The red cutter was jingling away down the road before the black span was
+in motion, but somehow the two sets of passengers reached Cobbleville at
+about the same time. Eight miles of excellent sleighing does not last
+long before fast horses, and there was to be no such thing as being
+late.
+
+"This is Cobbleville, Susie."
+
+"It's not so much bigger than Benton. I don't believe we shall be
+beaten."
+
+Something like that same suggestion cheered up Porter Hudson a little,
+as the deacon drove into the village; but the faces of Pen and Corry
+were very serious. There was a great trial before them, and they knew
+it,--a very great trial; for the tall-steepled, white-painted
+meeting-house in the middle of the village-green was hardly large enough
+to hold the crowd which was now pouring into it. The people had come
+from miles and miles all over the country; and those of the Cobbleville
+district were not only the more numerous, but seemed to be in a sort of
+exultation over a victory they were sure to win.
+
+Deacon Farnham and his party managed to secure seats, and then they
+could look around them. Up on the platform, behind the pulpit-desk, were
+several very dignified gentlemen; and it did the Benton people good to
+see Elder Evans among them.
+
+"He's come to see fair play," whispered Corry. "He won't let 'em put out
+any words they ought not to. Our chance is good."
+
+That was encouraging; and at that very moment Elder Evans arose, and
+came forward to say to his own parishioners,--
+
+"Some of our friends of the Cobbleville district have visitors among
+their young people, and the committee have consented to their taking
+part in the exercises."
+
+"That fixes you and Susie all right," said Corry. "They can't object to
+you now."
+
+Of course not; and the other final arrangements were speedily completed.
+
+It was simple enough, or would have been if there had not been so many
+boys and girls who had not learned to stand still. The pews and the
+galleries, all but a few of the very forward pews, were given up to the
+general public.
+
+The young folk from the Benton district were made to stand in the
+right-hand aisle, in a line that reached from the platform to the door.
+The other aisle belonged to Cobbleville, and its line of spellers came
+near being a double one.
+
+"Two to our one, Port," said Corry; "but they'll thin out fast enough
+after we begin to spell."
+
+There was no such thing as selecting places at first. The spelling began
+at the head of each line, alternating from one to the other. If the
+speller missed, he or she sat down wherever a seat could be found; but,
+as fast as words were spelled rightly, their happy victors were entitled
+to march to the heads of their lines, and so these were kept continually
+in motion. It was a proud thing to walk up the whole length of that
+meeting-house again and again, but it was not so proud to walk down the
+aisle hunting for a seat.
+
+"I see how it is," said Port.
+
+"Yes, it's great fun; and the last one up gets the dictionary."
+
+It had been agreed that neither of the school-teachers should give out
+the words, and Elder Evans had modestly insisted that the pastor of the
+Cobbleville church should perform that duty.
+
+"Won't he kill 'em off, though!" exclaimed Corry dolefully.
+
+"Won't he play fair?"
+
+"Why, yes, he'll be honest enough, I s'pose. But then he pronounces so!
+Wait till you hear him."
+
+It was about time to begin, and the two boys and Pen found themselves
+quite a little distance down the line below Vosh and Susie.
+
+"That's Elder Keyser. Oh, but isn't that a big dictionary! Hush! he's
+giving out a word."
+
+Nobody needed to be told that, for it was given in a deep, very heavy
+voice, that was heard all over the house; but Port at once understood
+all about Elder Keyser's pronunciation.
+
+The poor word was in a manner tumbled neck and heels out of the good
+man's mouth, with a sort of vocal kick to hurry it; and there were
+chances of serious injury to any syllable that should happen to stumble.
+
+"Hypocrite!" shouted the elder to the curly-headed youngster at the head
+of the Cobbleville line.
+
+"H-i-p"--
+
+"That'll do. Give an example, and take your seat."
+
+"Example," piped the boy, "puttin' a bad cent in the contribution-box."
+
+"Next. Hypocrite."
+
+The bright little girl at the head of the Benton aisle spelled it
+correctly, and Elder Evans raised his head high to smile on her.
+
+The words were now given out with something like rapidity; and there was
+a constant stream of boys and girls walking up the aisles, and of others
+coming in the opposite directions. Every one of the latter seemed to be
+muttering,--
+
+"I knew that word just as well!"
+
+It was well that the front pews had been kept for unlucky spellers; but
+a seat in one of them was hardly looked upon as a prize.
+
+"Port," said Corry gleefully, "they're thinning out fast. Think of a
+girl and two boys going down on such a word as 'rotation'!"
+
+"Was that it? I thought he said 'rundition;' and I'd never seen it
+anywhere. He'll stumble me, sure's you live."
+
+It was nearly their turn; and they one after the other felt a ton or so
+lighter when they were able to march to the front, instead of going to
+find seats.
+
+Before that, however, Elder Keyser had thrown as hard a word as he could
+find at the head of Vosh Stebbins.
+
+"Glad he had to say it slow," thought Vosh. "Guess he never tried it
+before. I can do it."
+
+He was safe for the time, and the next Cobbleville boy went down on an
+easy word that then came across to Susie. She was conscious of a great
+deal of red in her face; but she spelled it clearly and correctly, and
+that sent her to the head, and next to Vosh again.
+
+Twice more around, and the lines of young people in the aisles were not
+nearly so long as at first.
+
+There had been, moreover, an almost continual roar of laughter over the
+examples of use given by the unfortunates.
+
+Hardly were Port and Corry safe on the second round, before Elder Keyser
+blurted out to the next boy a word that sounded like--
+
+"Ber'l."
+
+"Bar'l, b-a-r-r"--
+
+"That'll do. Example?"
+
+"A bar'l of flour."
+
+"Next. Ber'l."
+
+"Ber'l, b-e-r-y-l."
+
+"Down. Wrong. Example?"
+
+"Beryl, a precious stone;" and the blushing damsel sorrowfully slipped
+aside into one of the front pews.
+
+"Next. Ber'l."
+
+"Berril, b-u-r-r-i-a-l."
+
+"Wrong. Down. Example?"
+
+"Berril, the berril of Surgeon Moore. I've heerd 'em sing it."
+
+That boy sat down; but the young lady opposite spelled "burial"
+correctly, even if she pronounced it "burriel."
+
+Once more round; and now Cobbleville could show barely twenty, and the
+Benton district hardly a baker's dozen.
+
+"We're getting 'em," chuckled Corry. "They've lost some of their best
+spellers on old Keyser's pronunciation."
+
+Alas for Corry! His turn came to him next upon a word the sound of which
+he was sure he caught.
+
+"Stood, s-t-oo-d."
+
+"Wrong. Down. Example?"
+
+"Stewed, then!" roared Corry in undisguised vexation. "Example: 'The boy
+stewed on the burning deck.'"
+
+"Next." The word sounded a little shorter this time; and the Cobbleville
+champion, whose turn it was, began,--
+
+"Stud, s-t-u-d."
+
+"Wrong. Down. Example?"
+
+"One of my shirt-studs;" and down he went in a great roar of laughter,
+while Porter Hudson took the hint Corry's "example" had given him, and
+went to the head again on "stewed."
+
+The rounds went by rapidly now; and each one sent down somebody in
+disgrace, while the excitement of the audience was visibly increasing.
+
+"Susie," whispered Vosh, "we've got as many left standing as they have.
+Keyser's killing 'em off fast, though."
+
+"That's what I'm afraid of."
+
+"Don't spell a word till you know what it is, even if you have to ask
+him."
+
+"I'd never dare do that."
+
+"I would, then."
+
+She was just above him, and in another moment her trial came. Vosh saw
+the puzzled, troubled expression on her face, and he came to the rescue.
+
+"Elder Keyser," he sang out, "was that word 'mystery,' or 'mastery,' or
+'monastery,' or was it 'mercy'? There's a difference in the spelling of
+'em."
+
+"Silence!"
+
+"Silence, s-i-l-e-n-c-e," gravely spelled Susie, while the whole
+meeting-house rang with the applause that greeted her.
+
+"Next. Spell 'misery,'" sharply exclaimed Elder Keyser; and a very
+pretty young lady of Cobbleville was so far disconcerted by the
+suddenness of it, that she actually began,--
+
+"Misery, m-i-z"--
+
+"Wrong. Down. Example?"
+
+"Misery--ah! nothing to eat."
+
+Susie was safe for that round; and in the next Elder Keyser was almost
+spitefully slow and correct in uttering the word he gave her.
+
+During all that time, the older people from the farmhouse had been
+watching the course of events with no small degree of exultation over
+the success of their young representatives.
+
+Corry had joined them, and about his first remark was,--
+
+"Oh, but won't old Keyser be a popular man in Cobbleville after
+to-night! He'd better go in for a donation. Half the boys in the
+village'd like to snowball him on his way home."
+
+The game grew closer. Barely six on a side, when Corry exclaimed,--
+
+"That cross-eyed girl's down! She was the best speller they had last
+year. Too bad, too. She spelled 'bunch,' when what old Keyser said was
+'bench.' It's a good deal too much to have to guess at what's in his
+mouth, and then spell it."
+
+"Dear, dear!" exclaimed aunt Judith a moment later. "Here comes Pen."
+
+"Such luck she's had!" said Corry. "Nothing harder than 'melon' since
+she began. Now it's Port's turn. Here he comes."
+
+"Port," said Mrs. Farnham, "what was that word?"
+
+"'Baratry,' and I thought he said 'battery;' and that long-necked
+Cobbleville boy said 'bartery,' and gave 'swopping jackknives' for an
+example."
+
+It could not last much longer now.
+
+"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Stebbins, "if my Vosh ain't all alone on our
+side! O Lavawjer!"
+
+"O Susie!" groaned Port, "to think of her spelling 'elopement' without
+any middle 'e'!"
+
+She had done it by a slip of the tongue, and, when asked for an example,
+stammered out,--
+
+"Elopement, a runaway," and left Vosh to fight what there was left of
+Cobbleville. There would have been three against him, if a bright boy
+had not forgotten how many "l's" there should be in "traveller," and
+then given himself for an example as he shot away down the aisle.
+
+Vosh knew how to spell "traveller;" and the next word went across the
+house to be spelled as "porringer," when all the elder wanted was
+"porridge."
+
+"Two left," said Mrs. Stebbins,--"that there dumpy gal and my Vosh."
+
+"She's one of the smartest girls in all Cobbleville," said Corry.
+
+"She ain't as smart as my Vosh."
+
+Opinions might vary on a point like that; and every time the
+healthy-looking young lady whom Mrs. Stebbins so unkindly described as
+"dumpy" spelled a word correctly, her conduct was approved by
+Cobbleville in a rousing round of applause. All that Vosh's friends
+could do for him was as nothing to it, but he had his revenge. On the
+fourth word, after they were left alone, the applause began too soon.
+
+The healthy young lady remembered too well the nature of Susie Hudson's
+blunder, and she rashly inserted an unnecessary "e" in "fusibility."
+
+"Wrong. Down. Example?"
+
+"Fusibility--example!"--a long, confused hesitation--"butter, sir."
+
+And the hasty multitude of Cobbleville had been loudly cheering the
+unlucky "e" which the triumphant Vosh the next moment very carefully
+omitted.
+
+Didn't Benton cheer then!
+
+"Vosh has got the dictionary!" all but shouted his happy mother. "I
+declare, I'll read it through."
+
+"If she does," whispered Corry to Port, "she'll never stop talking again
+as long as she lives."
+
+"She'd have all the words she'd need to keep her a-going."
+
+The ceremony of presenting the prize was gracefully turned over to Elder
+Evans by his reverend friend and the committee. The good man seemed to
+take a special pleasure in delivering so very large a book to "a young
+member of his own flock," as he expressed it. It must be confessed that
+Vosh looked more than a little "sheepish" when he walked forward, and
+held out his hands for the prize.
+
+The great spelling-match was over, and the crowd of old and young
+spectators began to disperse.
+
+Before the Cobbleville boys could make up their minds clearly whether it
+was their duty to snowball Elder Keyser or the Benton-district folk, the
+latter were mostly on their way home.
+
+"Susie," said Vosh, as he stowed the dictionary carefully away in the
+red cutter, "I wish you'd won it."
+
+"I'm real glad I didn't, then. Our side beat, and that's quite enough
+for me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+AN OLD-FASHIONED SNOW.
+
+
+There had been several light and fleecy falls of snow since the arrival
+of the "city cousins" at the farmhouse, but they had been only about
+enough to keep the sleighing in good order. The weather was bracingly
+cold; but, for all that, aunt Judith more than once felt called upon to
+remark,--
+
+"The winters nowadays ain't nothin' at all to what they used to be."
+
+"We'll have more snow yet," said the deacon. "Don't you be afraid."
+
+"Snow, Joshaway! Well, if you've forgotten, I haven't. I've seen this
+place of ourn jest snowed in for days and days, so't you couldn't git to
+the village at all till the roads was broke."
+
+Mrs. Stebbins had had a great deal more to say about it, all in the same
+strain; and the only consolation seemed to be, in the language of Deacon
+Farnham,--
+
+"It's the best kind of a winter for the lumbermen. The choppers haven't
+had to lose a day of time, and the haulin's the best you ever heard tell
+of."
+
+Just snow enough, and no more. That sort of thing was not to be securely
+counted on, however, as they were all about to learn. The very Saturday
+after the spelling-match, the morning opened with a sort of haze
+creeping over the north-eastern sky.
+
+It seemed to drift down from somewhere among the mountains, and by noon
+the snow began to fall.
+
+"Boys," said the deacon, "it's going to be a big one this time, real
+old-fashioned sort. We must get out the shovels, and keep the paths
+open."
+
+It hardly seemed necessary to do any shovelling yet; but the white
+flakes fell faster and faster, hour after hour, and night came on
+earlier than usual.
+
+"Now, Port," said Corry, "if you and I know what's good for ourselves,
+we'll lay in all the wood we'll need for to-morrow and next day. Every
+thing'll be snowed clean under."
+
+"That's so, but I wouldn't ha' missed seeing it come."
+
+Neither would Susie; and she and Pen watched it from the sitting-room
+windows, while even aunt Judith came and stood beside them, and
+declared,--
+
+"There, now, that's something like;" and Mrs. Farnham remarked in a tone
+of exultation,--
+
+"You never saw any thing like that in the city, Susie."
+
+"Never, aunt Sarah. It's splendid. It's the grandest snow-storm I ever
+heard of."
+
+There was very little wind as yet, and the fluttering flakes lay still
+where they fell.
+
+"All the snow that couldn't get down before is coming now," said Pen.
+"There's ever so much of it. I like snow."
+
+More and more of it; and the men and boys came in from the barns after
+supper as white as so many polar bears, to stamp and laugh and be
+brushed till the color of their clothes could be seen.
+
+Then the wind began to rise, and the whole family felt like gathering
+closely around the fireplace; and the flames poured up the wide chimney
+as if they were ready to fight that storm.
+
+The boys cracked nuts, and popped corn, and played checkers. The deacon
+read his newspaper. Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith plied their knitting.
+Susie showed Pen how to crochet a tidy. It was very cosey and
+comfortable; but all the while they could hear blast after blast, as
+they came howling around the house, and hurled the snow fiercely against
+the windows.
+
+"Isn't it grand?" said Port at last. "But we'll have some shovelling to
+do in the morning."
+
+"Guess we will!"
+
+"And you'll have a good time getting to school."
+
+"School! If this keeps on all night, there won't be any going to meeting
+to-morrow, let alone school on Monday."
+
+It did keep on all night; and the blinding drifts were whirling before
+the wind with a gustier sweep than ever, when the farmhouse people
+peered out at them next morning.
+
+Every shovel they could furnish a pair of hands for had to be at work
+good and early, and the task before them had a kind of impossible look
+about it.
+
+The cattle and sheep and horses had all been carefully sheltered. Even
+the poultry had received special attention from their human protectors.
+They were all sure to be found safe and warm, but the difficulty now was
+in finding them at all.
+
+There was a drift nearly ten feet high between the house and the pigpen,
+and a worse one was piled up over the gate leading into the barnyard.
+
+How those pigs did squeal, while they impatiently waited for the
+breakfast which was so very long in coming!
+
+"They're nearest, father," said Corry. "Hadn't we better stop that
+noise, first thing we do?"
+
+"You and Port go for them."
+
+They dug away manfully at that drift, or, rather, at the hole they meant
+to make through it, while the grown-up shovellers toiled in the
+direction of the barnyard-gate.
+
+"Corry," said Port, "don't you think this is pretty hard work for Sunday
+morning?"
+
+"Those pigs don't know any thing about Sunday. The cows don't either.
+They get hungry, just the same."
+
+"I s'pose it's all right."
+
+"Right! You trust father for that. He says the Lord made Sunday, and the
+Lord sent the snow, and we needn't worry about it. The Lord wants all
+his cattle fed regularly."
+
+"Did your father say that?"
+
+"Yes, I heard him saying it to aunt Judith."
+
+"It's all right, then. But don't you think it's pretty hard work for any
+kind of day?"
+
+"Yes, but it's fun. Hear those pigs! They know we're coming."
+
+It sounded a great deal as if the hungry quadrupeds in the pen were
+explaining their condition to all the outside world, or trying to, and
+cared very little how much work it might cost to bring them their
+breakfast.
+
+Their neighbors in the stables and barn made less fuss about the matter,
+but they had even longer to wait. Before the great drift at the gate
+could be conquered, it was breakfast-time for human beings, and there
+was never a morning when coffee and hot cakes seemed more perfectly
+appropriate.
+
+While the human workers were busy at the breakfast-table, the snow and
+wind did not take any resting spell, but kept right on, doing their best
+to restore the damaged drifts.
+
+"Susie," said Port, "doesn't this make you think of Lapland?"
+
+"Or Greenland, or Siberia?"
+
+"Tell you what," said Corry, "I don't believe the Russians get any thing
+much better than this."
+
+"If they do," said aunt Judith, "I don't want to live there. There won't
+be any going to meeting to-day."
+
+"Meeting!" exclaimed the deacon. "There'll be a dozen big drifts between
+this and the village. All hands'll have to turn out to breaking roads,
+soon as the storm lets up."
+
+No end of it was reached that day; but the barn was reached, and all the
+quadrupeds and bipeds were found, safe and hungry, and were carefully
+attended to.
+
+"We sha'n't get into the woods again right away," said Corry; and he was
+right about that, but there was a thoughtful look on Susie's face as she
+remarked,--
+
+"I wonder how Mrs. Stebbins is getting along. There's nobody there but
+Vosh."
+
+"He's a worker," said the deacon. "He's very strong for his
+age,--likeliest youngster in the whole valley. We can't get over there
+to-day, but we will to-morrow."
+
+That had indeed been a busy time for Vosh, hard and late as he had
+worked the night before; and his mother came out to help him.
+
+"It ain't no time to talk, Lavawjer," she said to him; "but I do wish I
+knowed how the deacon's folks was a-gettin' on. They must be pretty nigh
+snowed under."
+
+"Guess they're all right, but it'll give Susie and Port some notion of
+what snow can do in the country."
+
+Away on into the night the great northern gusts worked steadily; but
+towards morning it seemed as if the storm decided that it had done
+enough, and it began to subside. Now and then it again took hold as if
+it had still a drift or so to finish; but by sunrise every thing was
+still and calm and wonderfully white.
+
+"This'll be a working-day, I guess," said the deacon; "but all the paths
+we make'll stay made."
+
+There was some comfort in that; for all they had made on Sunday had to
+be shovelled out again, and the pigs were as noisy as ever.
+
+The deacon insisted on digging out every gate so it would swing wide
+open; and all the paths were made wide and clear, walled high on either
+side with tremendous banks of snow. It was after dinner, and the workers
+were getting a little weary of it, before they could open the
+front-gate.
+
+Susie was watching them from the windows, and Pen was in the front-yard,
+vigorously punching a snow-bank with a small shovel, when aunt Judith
+suddenly exclaimed right over Susie's shoulder,--
+
+"Sakes alive! There's somethin' a-stirrin' in the road. What can it
+be?--Sarah, call to Joshaway! There's a human critter out there in the
+snow."
+
+Susie almost held her breath, for there was surely a commotion in the
+great drift a few rods beyond the gate. The boys saw it too, and they
+and the deacon and the hired man began to shout, as if shouting would
+help a fellow in a deep snow.
+
+"Father," said Corry, "shall we go and see who it is?"
+
+"Not as long as he can thrash around like that. He'll get through."
+
+"He's gone away under," said Port. "There he comes--no, he's under
+again. It's awful deep."
+
+"He'll be smothered."
+
+Susie was watching that commotion in the snow as she had never watched
+any thing before, and just then a fleecy head came out on this side of
+the high drift.
+
+"Aunt Judith!--Aunt Sarah!--It's Vosh Stebbins!"
+
+"They're all snowed under, and he's come through to tell us. Oh, dear!"
+
+"Hurrah, boys!"
+
+There was nothing at all doleful in the ringing shout Vosh sent towards
+the house the moment he got the snow out of his mouth.
+
+"Have you got any snow at your house? There's more'n we want up our way.
+Let ye have loads of it, and not charge a cent."
+
+"Come on, Vosh," said the deacon. "How'd you find the roads?"
+
+"Sleighin' enough to last all summer, if you don't waste it. More like
+swimming than walking."
+
+"I'd say it was. Come on in and warm yourself."
+
+Both the boys were brushing the snow from him as soon as he got to the
+gate, and all the women-folk were out on the stoop to welcome him. Aunt
+Judith talked as fast as his own mother could have done, and insisted on
+his sitting down before the fireplace while she brought him a cup of
+coffee, and a glass of currant-wine, and a piece of pie, and then she
+said she would make him some pepper-tea.
+
+"Now, Miss Farnham," said Vosh, "I ain't hurt a bit."
+
+"And your mother?"
+
+"Never was better; but she was worried about you folks, and I said I'd
+come over and see.--Susie, did you know it'd been snowing a little out
+of doors?"
+
+"How did you ever get through?"
+
+"I just burrowed most of the way, like a wood-chuck."
+
+"You can't go back by the same hole," chuckled Corry.
+
+"I could if it was there. Guess I won't stay long, though: mother'll be
+afraid I'm lost in the drift."
+
+He was right about that; and, after a few minutes of merry talk, they
+all gathered at the front-gate to see him plunge in again.
+
+"He'll get through," said the deacon. "There's the makin' of a man in
+Vosh. He goes right straight ahead into any thing."
+
+The last thing he had said before starting was,--
+
+"All Benton Valley'll be out a-breakin' roads to-morrow."
+
+"That's so," said the deacon; but, after Vosh had gone, he added, "and
+snow-ploughs won't be of any kind of use."
+
+"How'll we work it?" said Corry.
+
+"Teams and sleds. It'll be a tough job, and the roads'll be pretty rough
+for a while."
+
+"Corry," said Port, "how'll they do it,--cart the snow away?"
+
+"Where'd they cart it to? You just wait and see."
+
+They were all tired enough to go to bed early, but the first rays of
+daylight next morning saw them all rushing out again. Port felt a little
+stiff and sore, but he determined to do his part at road-breaking.
+
+The snow lay pretty level in the roads, for the greater part; and you
+could see the top rails of the fences here and there, enough to go by.
+
+A little after breakfast the wide gate was swung open, and then the
+deacon's hired man came down the lane, driving the black team at a sharp
+trot, with the wood-sleigh behind them.
+
+Faster, faster, through the gate, and out into the snow, with a chorus
+of shouts to urge them on.
+
+The spirited, powerful fellows reared and plunged and snorted; but
+before long they seemed almost disposed to call it fun, and enjoy it.
+
+"Up the road first!" shouted the deacon. "We'll break that way till we
+get beyond Stebbins's."
+
+There was work for men and boys, as well as horses; and the snow-shovels
+were plied rapidly behind the plunging team. Porter Hudson quickly
+understood that a great deal of road could be opened in such a way as
+that, if all the farmers turned out to do it. They were likely to; for
+none of them could afford to be blocked in, and public opinion would
+have gone pretty sharply against any man who dodged his share of such
+important work as that.
+
+It was hardest on the horses, willingly as they went at it; and at the
+end of an hour or so the deacon brought out his second team, a pair of
+strong brown plough-horses. When they were tired, out came the best yoke
+of oxen; and it was fun enough to see the great, clumsy creatures, all
+but buried in a deep drift, slowly but strongly shouldering their way
+forward, and every now and then trying to turn around and get out of the
+scrape.
+
+"A skittish yoke wouldn't do," said Corry. "They wouldn't move any way
+but backwards."
+
+Long before that, the road had been opened "beyond Stebbins's," and Vosh
+had joined them with his snow-shovel. His paths were all in a condition
+that spoke well for his industry, and the deacon told him so. Mrs.
+Stebbins was at the gate, and she remarked,--
+
+"Tell ye what, deacon, if you think my Vosh can't do any thing but spell
+for dixinaries, you're mistaken. He's a worker, he is."
+
+"That's so."
+
+But there was no need of his saying much more, for there in the road
+behind him were Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith, and Susie and Pen; and you
+could have heard every voice among them, till the front-door shut behind
+the last one.
+
+That was Pen, and her last word had been a shout to Vosh in the road:--
+
+"We've got more snow in our front-yard than you have, anyhow."
+
+They were now pushing their work towards the village, and could already
+catch glimpses of other "gangs," as Vosh called them, here and there
+down the road. In some places, where the snow was not so deep, they made
+"turnouts" wide enough for loaded sleighs to pass each other.
+
+"If we didn't," said Vosh, "one team'd have to lie down and let the
+other drive over it."
+
+He could not tell Port that he had ever seen that done, but he added,
+"I've had to burrow through a drift, team and all, when there wasn't any
+turnout made."
+
+That was very much like what they had been doing all day, and they kept
+it up through all the next; but, when Tuesday night came, it was pretty
+clear that "the roads were open." A sleigh came up from Benton with a
+man in it who had business with the deacon, and who had some remarkable
+yarns to tell about the depth of the drifts on the other side of the
+valley.
+
+"Deacon Paulding's house was just drifted clean under, barns and all. He
+had to make a kind of a tunnel to his stable, before he could fodder his
+critters."
+
+"You don't say!" exclaimed aunt Judith. "Snowed under! I've known that
+to happen any number of times when I was a girl. Good big houses too;
+not little hencoops of things, like that there house of old Deacon
+Paulding's. He's a small specimen too. He'd need a tunnel to git through
+most any thin'. I must say, though, this 'ere's a right good
+old-fashioned snow, to come in these days."
+
+It was new-fashioned enough to Porter and Susie, and the former
+remarked,--
+
+"Oh, but won't there be some water when all this begins to melt!"
+
+Others were thinking of that very thing, for the sun had been very
+bright all day. It was brighter still on the day that followed; and
+towards night a dull, leaden fog arose in the west, for the sun to go
+down in.
+
+"Father," said Mrs. Farnham, "do you think there's more snow coming?"
+
+"Guess not, Sarah. It looks more like a rain and a thaw."
+
+"There's most always a thaw in February, but it 'pears as if it was a
+little early in the month."
+
+So it was, and the weather made a sort of failure for once. To be sure,
+there were several hours next day when the winter seemed to have let go
+its hold, and while a dull, slow, cold rain came pouring down upon the
+snow-drifts. They settled under it a little sullenly, and then the wind
+shifted to the north-east, and it grew cold enough for anybody.
+
+"I've known it to do that very thing when I was a girl," said aunt
+Judith. "There'll be the awfullest kind of a crust."
+
+"Glad we had all our breaking done before this came," said her brother.
+"It'd be heavy work to do now."
+
+The hard frost of that night was followed by a crisp and bracing
+morning, and aunt Judith's prophecy was fulfilled. The crust over the
+great snow-fall was strong enough to bear the weight of a man almost
+anywhere.
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Corry, as he climbed a drift, and walked away towards
+the open field beyond. "We'll have some fun now."
+
+"What kind of fun?" asked Port.
+
+"What kind? Well, all kinds,--sliding down hill, snow-shoeing in the
+woods, all sorts of things."
+
+"Hurrah for all that!"
+
+"Boys!" shouted Vosh from the front-gate, "the mill-pond was flooded
+yesterday, and it's frozen hard now. There's acres and acres of the best
+skating you ever heard of, glary as a pane of glass."
+
+There was a shout then that brought aunt Judith and Susie to the window,
+and Porter was saying to himself,--
+
+"Well, I am glad we brought along our skates, after all. There'll be a
+chance to use 'em."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+GRAND COASTING.
+
+
+Vosh Stebbins got home from school very early Friday afternoon, and his
+chores were attended to in a great hurry.
+
+After that, his mother's mind was stirred to the curiosity point by an
+unusual amount of hammering out in the barn. He was a good deal of a
+mechanical genius, or, as she expressed it, "he had a nateral turn for
+tools;" and he had more than once astonished her by the results of his
+hammering. When, however, she asked him what he was up to, all she could
+get from him was,--
+
+"I tell you what, mother, I'm going to show 'em a new wrinkle. Wait till
+morning. 'Tisn't quite ready yet."
+
+"You'd ort to tell me, Vosh. Mebbe I could give you some idees."
+
+He was very close-mouthed for once, however, and it may be he had some
+doubts about his own "idees."
+
+The Benton boys and girls had not learned to say "coasting:" they all
+called it "sliding down hill." But the country they lived in had been
+planned expressly for it. The hills around the valley were steeper in
+some places than in others, but the roads generally had to wind more or
+less in climbing them. There was not enough of travelling on any of them
+to interfere seriously with the free use of sleds, and you could almost
+always see whether or not the track was clear. Just now, however, the
+very depth of the snow was in the way, for the heavy sleighs had cut
+down into it so as to leave great ridges in the middle. That was enough
+to spoil the running of any thing narrow. The great storm, therefore,
+would have been a bad thing in that connection, but for the thaw and
+freeze, and the splendid, thick, icy crust.
+
+Not more than a mile east of Deacon Farnham's, the land sloped down
+almost gently for more than a mile, to the very edge of the village; and
+there were roads from that on, to the borders of the little river and
+the mill-pond. Of course all that slope was not in one field; but all
+the low and broken fences were now snowed under, and it was easy to take
+the top rails from the two or three high ones, so as to leave wide gaps.
+With very little trouble, therefore, the boys prepared for their fun a
+clear, slippery descent, almost level in some places, that would have
+been hard to beat anywhere. The hollows were all drifted full, and there
+was a good road on one side to go up hill by. All that had been duly
+explained to Susie and Port by Corry, and their great affliction seemed
+to be that they only had one sled among them.
+
+"It'll hold you and me, Port, if we stick on hard; besides, we can take
+turns."
+
+"And I'll slide Susie," said Pen.
+
+Susie had very little to say about it during the evening; but the idea
+grew upon her all the time, and she went out to look at Corry's sled in
+the morning, after breakfast. Aunt Judith stood in the doorway, and
+heard her say,--
+
+"Yes, it must be splendid!"
+
+"Why, Susie Hudson! That sort of rompin', tom-boy business ain't for
+grown-up young ladies."
+
+"I'm not grown-up, aunt Judith: I'm only sixteen."
+
+"Goin' on seventeen, and you're from the city too; and that there mite
+of a sled--well, it's good enough for boys."
+
+Just then Corry sang out,--
+
+"Halloo, Vosh! Going to slide down hill in a cutter?"
+
+There he was at the gate, sorrel colt, red blanket, bells, and all.
+
+"Cutter! No; but you wouldn't have the girls walk up hill after every
+slide, would you?"
+
+"The girls!" exclaimed aunt Judith. "They ain't a-goin'. I won't hear to
+any sech thing."
+
+"Now, Miss Farnham, you come out here and look at my sled. They've got
+one like it over in Cobbleville, only mine's bigger. If you'll come
+along with us"--
+
+"Me come! Sakes alive! But what have you been a-doin'?"
+
+"Why, Vosh," said Corry, "it's your little old pair of bobs, and you've
+rigged a box on the hind one. What's that in front?"
+
+"That's my rudder."
+
+"Rudder! You can't steer with it: a rudder ought to be behind."
+
+"Ought it, now? Don't you see? The front bob turns on a pin in the
+middle, that comes up through the centre plank. I've greased it, so it
+turns easy. See how I've rigged that yoke to the front bob? See the two
+arms a-standing up? You pull on one of those arms, and you pull around
+the head of the bob. That steers 'em. The hind bob follows the front
+one: can't help it, if it tries."
+
+Aunt Judith walked all around it: she even gave one arm of that yoke a
+hard push to see if it would really turn the "bob" sled it was geared
+to.
+
+"Sakes alive! It'll do it!"
+
+Susie had hardly waited to say good-morning to Vosh; and there she was
+now, with her hood on, exclaiming,--
+
+"Pen, Pen! why don't you go and get your things on? We mustn't keep Vosh
+waiting."
+
+Pen was off like a flash, and Corry remarked to Vosh,--
+
+"That'll be just great, if it'll work."
+
+"Work! It's sure to work. It's as good as the Cobbleville 'ripper.'
+That's what they call it. All it wants is somebody strong in the arms to
+steer."
+
+"I'd never trust myself," said aunt Judith with a deep sigh of anxiety.
+
+"Tell you what, Corry," said Port, "we'll make Vosh haul us up hill.
+Won't have to walk."
+
+"That's the checker. First time I ever had a horse and a man to help me
+slide down hill."
+
+They discovered afterwards how important a part of the sport that was;
+but just then they all had to join in begging permission for Susie and
+Pen to go. Even Mrs. Farnham had her objections, and the deacon himself
+was studying the matter; when down the road came Mrs. Stebbins, and the
+case was won for the young people.
+
+"Judith," she asked, "wasn't you and Sarah ever no younger'n you be now?
+It does seem to me as if some folks forgot they was ever gals and boys,
+and slid down hill, and had a good time, and wasn't a mite the worse for
+it. Vosh, he's been a-hammerin' away at that thing till he jest knows
+it'll work, and so do I.--Susie, you and Pen git right into the cutter,
+and I'll explain how them bobs'll steer. You see"--
+
+"Get in, Pen," said the deacon. "Get in, Susie.--Don't you try too heavy
+a load, Vosh."
+
+"Joshaway, they'll break all their precious necks."
+
+"No, they won't. I'll risk it."
+
+"Judith," went on Mrs. Stebbins, "I'll tell ye all about it;" and that
+was what she was yet doing, after the cutter turned the corner of the
+road below the house, with the ripper behind it, and Port and Corry on
+their sled, dragging joyously astern of the new invention.
+
+The whole country was icy, and glittered beautifully white, in the
+clear, frosty sunshine. When they reached the coasting-ground, it looked
+absolutely perfect; and a score of sleds, with twice as many boys, were
+already at work upon it. The sliding-down that slope was something to
+wonder at; but the climbing back again was another thing altogether. It
+was easy enough for Vosh, however, to make a bargain with one of his
+boy-friends to do his extra driving for him, and have the cutter ready
+for use every time, with, of course, just a little waiting.
+
+"How often they do slip down!" exclaimed Susie, after a long look at the
+climbers in the road.
+
+"Some of 'em'll be good and lame to-morrow," said Corry. "I don't
+believe you girls'd ever get up the hill again, once you got down."
+
+It had been thoughtful of Vosh to look out for that; but he had had some
+experience on that slope in other winters, and knew what he was about.
+
+They were on the very upper level now. Vosh helped the girls out of the
+cutter, and at once started it off, telling the driver,--
+
+"Go right on into Benton: that's where we're coming."
+
+The "pair of bobs" had been the running-gear of a small wood-sleigh
+built for one horse to pull around among the woods. It was light but
+strong, and the box on the rear half of it was well supplied with
+blankets. When the girls were in it, and the gay red spread from the
+cutter was thrown in front of them, the ripper put on quite a holiday
+appearance.
+
+"Susie," said Pen, "it's awful. We're going to go."
+
+Susie made no reply; but she was conscious of a great flutter of
+excitement, as she nestled back upon her seat, and looked out upon the
+great glittering expanse of white that spread out below and beyond,
+until it seemed to break in pieces among the streets and houses of
+Benton.
+
+There was one moment a little before starting when she almost felt like
+backing out.
+
+"Port," she said, "hadn't you better come in here with us?"
+
+"Yes, Port," said Vosh, "get in. There's plenty of room. We'll be all
+the better for more weight."
+
+Port was glad enough to accept, and he knew every other boy in sight was
+envying him. There had been no end of comments on "Vosh Stebbins's
+ripper."
+
+It was curious, but hardly any fellow who had a sled of his own had, at
+the same time, any faith that "them bobs'll steer."
+
+Away went Corry the next instant, on his swift little hand-sled, darting
+down over the slippery crust like a sort of--well, like a flash of boy.
+
+"Shall we go through the village?" asked Susie, with a half-shuddering
+idea that when they were once a-going they would never stop.
+
+"See about it," said Vosh. "We'll make the longest trip ever was run
+down this hill."
+
+"We're going, Susie!" exclaimed Pen. "Hold your breath. We're going."
+
+They were starting, sure enough, and Susie felt that she was turning a
+little pale; but they moved slowly at first, for the slope was very
+gentle there.
+
+"Vosh, does it steer?" said Pen.
+
+That was the very thing he was experimenting on; and the other boys did
+not guess why the new contrivance made so many curves and turns as it
+did, until he was able to shout,--
+
+"She works! See? I can twist her in any direction."
+
+"I'm so glad!" exclaimed Susie.
+
+"Now, girls!"
+
+The ripper made a sudden dash forward, down a steeper incline, faster,
+faster. And there was no need to tell the young-lady passengers to hold
+their breaths: that seemed the most natural thing in all the world to
+do.
+
+There never was a more slippery crust, and the ripper almost seemed to
+know it.
+
+Faster, faster, shooting down the steep slopes, and spinning across the
+level reaches; and all the while there was Vosh Stebbins bracing himself
+firmly, as he clung to the long arms of his rudder.
+
+It was well he could guide so perfectly, for the gaps in the fences were
+none too wide, after all; and if he and his cargo should happen to miss
+one of these, and be dashed against a fence--It was altogether too
+dreadful to think of, and there was no time to think of it.
+
+The cargo had great confidence in their "engineer and pilot," as Port
+had called him before starting, and they had more after they shot
+through the first gap.
+
+The wind whistled by their ears. The country on either side was but a
+streak of white. Nobody could guess how fast they were going now.
+
+"There's the village!" gasped Port.
+
+"The river!" whispered Pen.
+
+"O Vosh!" began Susie, as they shot into what she saw was a road lined
+with streaks of houses and fences.
+
+Before she could think of another word, they were out on the ice of the
+little stream, and a skilful twist of the rudder sent them down it
+instead of across. In a moment more they were slipping smoothly along
+over the wind-swept surface of the frozen mill-pond; and the ripper had
+lost so much of its impetus, that there was no difficulty in bringing it
+to a standstill.
+
+"There!" said Vosh, as he held out his hand to help Susie alight,
+"that's the longest slide down hill anybody ever took in Benton Valley.
+Nobody'll beat that in a hurry."
+
+"I don't think they will," she said; and Pen added inquiringly,--
+
+"We ain't scared a bit, Vosh. We'd just as lief have another."
+
+That was what the sorrel colt was coming down the road for; and they
+were speedily on their way up, more envied than ever.
+
+"Don't I wish aunt Judith was here now!" exclaimed Pen.
+
+"She'd never ride down hill in this thing," said Vosh. "I'm glad she
+didn't see us come."
+
+There was a great deal of work before the sorrel colt that morning, and
+knot after knot of curious spectators came out of the village "to see
+how Vosh Stebbins had gone to work and beaten that there Cobbleville
+ripper."
+
+"He's a cute one."
+
+"Regular built genius."
+
+"There ain't such another feller in Cobbleville. He beat 'em all at
+spellin', too."
+
+Vosh had won fame as well as fun, and all Benton was proud of him. For
+all that, he was tired enough by dinner-time, and was glad to drive his
+passengers back to the farmhouse.
+
+"Aunt Judith," said Susie, "it was splendid! You never saw any thing
+like it! Wonderful!"
+
+There was a great deal more to be told, and it was all true; but it was
+not easy for aunt Judith and Mrs. Farnham to believe it.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that that thing didn't stop till you were out in
+the middle of the mill-pond?" asked aunt Judith; and four young people
+with one voice told her it was nearer the upper end than the middle.
+
+"Well," said she, "I s'pose it must have been so, but there was never
+any such sliding down hill before up this way. I'd like to see it done
+just once; that is, if it didn't just happen, and can't be done again,
+nohow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE DEER-HUNT ON THE CRUST.
+
+
+That Saturday afternoon was a quiet one at the farmhouse. It really
+seemed as if there had been excitement enough for one day. Still, as
+aunt Judith was in the habit of remarking,--
+
+"Sometimes you can't always tell for sure what's a-coming."
+
+Vosh Stebbins came over after supper, and he met Deacon Farnham at the
+gate. There was nothing unaccountable in that; but the boys heard him
+say, just as he was following the deacon in,--
+
+"No, we won't need any snow-shoes. I'll take mine along."
+
+"I'll take mine too, but the crust's strong enough without 'em."
+
+"It'll be weak in spots in the woods: Sile Hathaway says it is."
+
+Those were great words for two boys to hear,--"woods" and "Sile
+Hathaway."
+
+"Port," said Corry, "something's coming."
+
+"Hark!"
+
+"Yes, deacon, Sile says the deer break right through, every here and
+there. There's droves of 'em, and the storm's kind o' driven 'em down
+this way."
+
+"I've known it happen so more'n once."
+
+"Port," whispered Corry, as if it were an awful secret, "I know now:
+it's a deer-hunt on the crust."
+
+"Oh-h!" was all the answer; and in half a minute more Vosh was on the
+stoop with them. Then he was in the house. Then the whole affair burst
+out like a sudden storm.
+
+Deacon Farnham did not say much; but there was a flush on his face, and
+a light in his eyes, that made him look ten years younger. Mrs. Farnham
+told him so. But Pen interrupted Vosh halfway in the explanation he was
+giving Susie, by exclaiming,--
+
+"O mother! may I go?"
+
+"My child"--
+
+"I never saw a live deer killed on the snow. If Susie goes, may I
+go?--Are you going?"
+
+Susie could hardly help saying,--
+
+"I know I can't go, but I'd like to."
+
+"Port!" exclaimed Corry, "let's get out the guns, and clean 'em. It
+won't do to have 'em miss fire."
+
+"That's a good idea," said his father. "Vosh and I'll want to set out
+early Monday morning. You won't have time to clean 'em before you go to
+school."
+
+"School! Monday!"
+
+"Now, Joshaway," exclaimed aunt Judith, "don't tease the boy that way.
+He won't miss just one day's schoolin', and the crust ain't going to
+last forever. If Mrs. Stebbins can spare Vosh"--
+
+"My mother? Why, she'd go herself if she could."
+
+"Well, Corry," said his father, "if you and Port'll agree not to kill
+too many deer, you may go."
+
+Port was still wrestling with the painful idea of a gun missing fire
+after it was actually pointed at large game. There was something
+dreadful and incredible about it; and, when the weapons were brought
+out, he cleaned away at them almost painfully.
+
+Deacon Farnham attended to his own rifle. Then he took a ladle, and
+melted some lead at the kitchen fire, and moulded a score or so of
+bullets.
+
+"Will that be enough?" asked Port.
+
+"With those in my pouch? I'd say they would. If I get a chance to use
+half a dozen, I'll be satisfied. You boys'd better take plenty of
+buckshot, though. You'll be sowing the woods with 'em."
+
+Susie did not exactly care to handle those "shooting-irons," as Vosh
+called them; but there was a strange fascination about them, after all.
+She could understand why, when they were all laid down on the table,
+aunt Judith put on her spectacles, and came and peered at them all over,
+and said,--
+
+"They ain't much like the guns we had when I was a girl. They used to
+kill heaps o' game, too."
+
+"What is the difference, aunt Judith?" asked Susie.
+
+"Well, 'pears like these ain't much more'n half as big and heavy. Double
+bar'ls, too, and all our'n was single. We had flint locks, and didn't
+know what percussion-caps was. 'Pears to me, if I was goin' a-huntin',
+I'd ruther have one of the old kind."
+
+Pen counted her father's bullets over and over, till she could hardly
+tell whether he had two dozen or four; and Corry had to stop her nicking
+them with the scissors.
+
+"That's to show they're counted."
+
+"Yes; but they won't go straight with nicks in 'em. You'll make father
+miss his deer."
+
+Vosh went home early; but it was all arranged before he left the house,
+and it was safe to say that nobody he left behind him would go to sleep
+right away.
+
+It was very hard indeed, all day Sunday, for the youngsters to keep
+good, and not to say more than once an hour,--
+
+"It's good and cold. The crust'll be all right to-morrow."
+
+The Monday morning breakfast was eaten before daylight, and it was
+hardly over before they heard Vosh and Mrs. Stebbins at the door.
+
+They came right in, of course; and the first words were from her,--
+
+"Now, Judith, you and Sarah ain't goin', are ye? I'd go in a minute, if
+I had a gun, and was sure it wouldn't go off.--Susie, are you and Pen
+goin'? I do hope there'll be deer enough for all four on 'em, and they
+won't come back and have to say they left 'em in the woods."
+
+There was not much time to talk, so ready was every thing and every
+body; but it did seem to Port as if Vosh Stebbins's hand-sled, long as
+it was, was a small provision for bringing home all the deer they were
+to kill.
+
+"The lunch-basket and the snow-shoes half fill it now."
+
+"It'll do," said Vosh. "You'll see."
+
+"Why don't you put on your snow-shoes?"
+
+"The ice-pegs I've put in all your boot-heels'll be worth a good deal
+more, if the crust's what it's likely to be."
+
+It was not a great while before they all discovered what good things to
+prevent slipping were a few iron peg-heads sticking out of the heels of
+your boots. As for the snow-shoes, nobody ever wants to wear such clumsy
+affairs unless it is necessary.
+
+Old Ponto had been in a fever ever since the boys began to clean the
+guns Saturday evening; but Vosh had secured for that day's work the
+services of a very different kind of dog,--one, moreover, that seemed to
+know him, and to be disposed to obey his orders, but that paid small
+attention to the advances of any other person.
+
+"Is Jack a deer-hound?" asked Port.
+
+"Not quite," said Vosh. "He's only a half-breed; but he's run down a
+good many deer, knows all about it."
+
+He was a tall, strong, long-legged animal, with lop-ears and a sulky
+face; but there was much more "hunter" in his appearance than in that of
+old Ponto. His conduct was also more business-like; for it was not until
+Ponto had slid all the way to the bottom of several deep hollows, that
+he learned the wisdom of plodding along with the rest, instead of
+searching the woods for rabbits.
+
+"Rabbits!" The very mention of those little animals made the boys look
+at each other as if asking,--
+
+"Did you ever hunt any thing as small as a rabbit?"
+
+The snow in the woods was deep, but it was not drifted much; and the
+crust was hard, except close to the trunks of the trees, and under the
+heavier pines and hemlocks. Walking was easy, and they pushed right on
+through the forest.
+
+"How'll we ever find our way back again?" asked Port.
+
+"Follow our own tracks," said Corry. "Besides, father and Vosh'd never
+dream of getting lost around here. Guess I wouldn't, either."
+
+Port looked back at the trail they had made. He thought he could follow
+that. Still he would have been more sure of himself in the streets of a
+city, with names and numbers on all the lamp-posts at the corners.
+
+"Keep your tempers, boys. It's hunter's luck, you know. We may not get a
+single shot."
+
+The words were hardly out of the deacon's mouth, before Jack sprang
+suddenly forward, anxiously followed by Ponto.
+
+"He's scented!" exclaimed Vosh. "There isn't much wind; but it's blowing
+this way, what there is."
+
+"Hark! Hear him?"
+
+That was music. It seemed as if a thrill went over every nerve among
+them, at the cry of the excited hound, as he fully caught the scent, and
+"opened on it."
+
+"There'll be a run now, Vosh."
+
+"Not up the mountain."
+
+"No, we won't follow yet. If they turn him, he'll come this way."
+
+"Or down the hollow."
+
+"No lake for him now."
+
+"He can run on this crust."
+
+"Yes, but he can't pick his own course with the dogs behind him."
+
+Comments followed thick and fast, as the eager sportsmen pushed onward.
+It seemed to the boys a good time to do some running, if they could but
+know in what direction to go; but Vosh and the deacon were carefully
+studying what they called "the lay of the land."
+
+Ahead of them, they knew, was a bold, steep mountain, such as no deer
+would climb. Half a mile to the right was the road to Mink Lake; and to
+the left and behind them the woods were open, with a fair amount of
+"running-room."
+
+"If they turn him," said Vosh, "he'll have to pass in sight. You may get
+a shot, deacon. It'll be a long one, but I'd be ready if I was you."
+
+It turned out that way in less than five minutes; for a fine doe came
+springing across the snow, well ahead of the dogs, and out of "shot-gun
+range."
+
+"Try her, deacon! There, she's broken through! Try her!"
+
+The deacon's rifle was already at his shoulder, and, just as the
+beautiful animal scrambled out upon the crust, the sharp "crack" rang
+through the forest.
+
+"Struck!" shouted Vosh as the doe gave a great spring; but she dashed
+right onward, followed by the dogs.
+
+"Now, boys, you run while I load."
+
+Port and Corry hardly needed orders; and the main wonder was, that they
+did not break their necks in the desperate burst they made after that
+wounded deer. Even Jack could not do his best running over that icy
+crust, except when travelling in a straight line. He could not turn
+quickly without slipping; and the doe must have known it, to judge by
+the manner in which she dodged among the trees.
+
+"Here she comes, right past us!"
+
+Bang! went one barrel of Vosh Stebbins's gun.
+
+"Missed, I declare! Must be I've got the buck-ague."
+
+Bang! from Corry, and he seemed to have done no better; but just then
+the deer broke through at the foot of a hemlock, and Porter Hudson had
+what was almost as sure as a "sitting shot."
+
+He made the best of it by letting drive with right and left. It was a
+long range, and the shot scattered, of course; but they afterwards found
+the marks of nine of them in the skin of that doe.
+
+In twenty seconds Jack had her by the throat; and Ponto tried to imitate
+him, but concluded that he had better lie down and pant a little.
+
+Vosh was on hand now, to take off Jack, and to finish the work with his
+long, sharp hunting-knife. He knew exactly what to do; and, when Deacon
+Farnham came up, they hung their game to the lower limb of a tree.
+
+"No wolves around," said Vosh; "but it'll be safe from any kind of
+varmint."
+
+"What does he mean, Corry?"
+
+"Why, the wolves are pretty well killed off; but there are wildcats, and
+some other things, I hardly know what. All the bears are treed. We'll
+stop for our game on our way home."
+
+They were now barely two miles from the farmhouse, and they went fully
+another before they saw any more game. Off, then, went the dogs; and the
+boys were taken a little by surprise when the deacon said,--
+
+"Vosh, you and the boys sit right down here.--No, Corry, you and Port
+walk off to the right there, about thirty or forty rods. I'll strike to
+the left as far as the edge of the big ravine. If they've really started
+a deer, he may come along there."
+
+Away he went, and away went the boys. Porter Hudson had hardly been able
+to speak ever since he fired at the doe. It was true that his uncle had
+hit it first; but then, he had killed it, and he was thinking what a
+thing that would be to tell his city friends after he should get home.
+He did not know a boy among them who had ever fired a gun at a deer. Now
+he himself was to be that very boy, and it was almost too much. He was
+beginning to half dream about it, when he heard the warning cry of Jack,
+coming nearer and nearer, ahead of him.
+
+Almost at the same moment he heard the crack of his uncle's rifle. He
+saw Corry spring to his feet, and stand still, while Vosh Stebbins
+darted away to the left, as if he thought he might be needed there.
+
+"What can it be? I don't see a single thing. No--yes--there he goes,
+straight for Corry! Why doesn't Vosh stop?"
+
+The deer in sight was a fine buck, with antlers which afterward proved
+him to be three years old; and it was easier for Corry to hit him "on
+the run" than to hit a white rabbit. He fired both barrels too, and he
+shouted to Port; but there was no more glory for the city boy this time.
+Corry had aimed too well, and the buck had been too near; and it was
+hardly necessary for the dogs to pull down their game.
+
+"Corry, hear that? It's Vosh's gun. What's the matter?"
+
+"There goes his second barrel. Run: your gun's loaded."
+
+It was all in a minute; and Port darted away with a strong impression
+that something strange had happened.
+
+Corry must have thought so too, for he loaded his gun like lightning.
+
+Something strange had indeed happened.
+
+Deacon Farnham had walked on rapidly towards the deep ravine, after
+leaving the boys. He had known that forest ever since he was a boy, and
+had killed more than one deer in that vicinity. He did not go any great
+distance, keeping his eyes sharply about him, when he suddenly stopped
+short, and raised his rifle.
+
+It looked as if he were aiming at a clump of sumach-bushes; and Port, or
+even Corry, would probably have said they saw nothing there. Vosh,
+perhaps, or any hunter of more experience, would have said,--
+
+"See his antlers, just above the thick bush? See 'em move? He's gazing
+now. He'll be off in a jiffy."
+
+If left alone, but not so fast after the deacon had fired; for, after he
+had seen those antlers, he could guess pretty well at the body below
+them. He could not correctly guess its exact position, however; and so,
+instead of hitting the deer in the chest or side, the bullet grazed his
+shoulder, and struck his right hip. There was no more "run" after that
+in that magnificent buck, but there was plenty of fight. There was
+danger, too, in his sharp and branching horns, as Deacon Farnham
+discovered when he so rashly plunged in among those bushes.
+
+Danger from a deer!
+
+Exactly. Danger of being gored by those natural weapons of his.
+
+Instead of being able to use his hunting-knife, the deacon found himself
+dodging actively behind trees, and fending off with his empty rifle the
+furious charges of his desperate assailant, until Vosh came to his
+assistance.
+
+It was a very good thing that Vosh came when he did, and that his gun
+was loaded. Two charges of buckshot were fired at very short range; and
+the deacon was safe, but he was pretty nearly out of breath.
+
+"You were just in time, Vosh."
+
+"Glad I was. Isn't he a whopper? Sile Hathaway was right. The deer
+haven't run as well, down this way, since I remember."
+
+Port came running up just then; and he was all eyes and ears, although
+his help was not needed.
+
+"He's a grand one! We've got another."
+
+"Have you?" panted his uncle. "Vosh, you go and 'tend to it. I'll 'tend
+to this one soon as I get my breath. Guess we've got all the game we
+want for one day."
+
+"Why, uncle, it isn't much after noon: we might kill some more."
+
+"Well, we might, but it'll be late enough when we get home. We've work
+before us, Port. Time we had some lunch, anyway."
+
+They were all ready enough for that; but the boys began to discover soon
+afterwards that deer-hunting was not all play. It was easy enough to cut
+down branches of trees, and lay them on the sled, and fasten them
+together. Then it was not a terrible lift for all four of them to raise
+a dead deer, and lay him on the branches.
+
+The tug of war came afterwards, as they hauled that sled homeward over
+the crust. Several times it broke through; and then there was no end of
+floundering in the snow, and tugging and lifting, before they again got
+it a-going. Then once it got away from them, and slid away down a deep,
+steep hollow, landing its cargo all in a heap at the bottom. There was
+no use for the snow-shoes, but they had to be fished for in the snow
+when the sled broke through.
+
+It was a long pull, but they all worked at it until at last they hauled
+the sled out into the half-made road to Mink Lake. After that, they got
+on better; but they were a weary lot of hunters when they reached the
+farmhouse, and the day was about gone.
+
+There were eager faces at the windows, that of Mrs. Stebbins among them.
+There were shrill shouts from Pen on the front stoop. Then there was an
+excited little gathering at the kitchen-door, when the sled was drawn in
+front of it, and the deacon exclaimed,--
+
+"There! Look at 'em!"
+
+"Three of 'em!" exclaimed aunt Judith. "All real good ones, too. Now,
+when I was a girl, I've known the men folks go out and bring in six of a
+morning, and they didn't have to go more'n a mile from the house."
+
+Mrs. Farnham was equally well satisfied, and Pen clapped her little
+hands in a gale of excitement.
+
+"Poor things!" said Susie.
+
+She could hardly help feeling a little sorry for those three beautiful
+creatures on the sled; but Mrs. Stebbins curtly remarked,--
+
+"Nonsense, my dear: they was made to be killed and eaten.--Deacon, did
+you and the boys kill any on 'em?"
+
+She had a vague idea that the glory of that hunt must somehow have been
+won by "my Vosh;" but Susie had just time to say,--
+
+"They look so innocent, so helpless!" when her uncle exclaimed,--
+
+"Innocent! Helpless! That big buck was within an inch of making an end
+of me when Vosh came up and shot him.--He's your game, Mrs. Stebbins."
+
+He forgot to mention that the fight with the buck was all his own fault,
+for he began it; but the story helped Susie out of her bit of
+soft-heartedness, and it made Mrs. Stebbins hold her head up amazingly.
+
+"O father!" said Pen. "Did he hurt you? He's a dreadful deer."
+
+"I think, Pen," said her father, "I'll let you eat some of him for
+supper."
+
+There was venison-steak in abundance at table, and Corry was nearly
+justified in declaring,--
+
+"It's good fun to hunt deer, but I'd rather eat 'em than drag 'em home."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ON THE ICE.
+
+
+Both Vosh Stebbins and Corry Farnham had a great deal to do in their
+hours before and after school. The former, particularly, had chores upon
+his hands which would have been a great burden to a less thoroughly
+efficient and industrious young fellow. He had his sorrel colt, instead
+of the two teams and the oxen of the other farm, and he also had cows
+and pigs. As to these and the poultry, Mrs. Stebbins relieved him of
+much, for she said of herself,--
+
+"I'm as spry as a gal, and I don't show no signs of failin'. I don't
+intend to hev that boy choked off from havin' his sheer of all the
+goin's-on he can reach out to."
+
+She was a notable housekeeper and manager, and was free to say so. As
+for Corry, not a little of the work put upon him was what his father
+wisely called "farm-schooling;" but he had it to do, just the same.
+
+One consequence was, that the splendid skating prepared by the thaw and
+rain and freeze on the mill-pond had not received the attention it so
+well deserved. Some of the village boys had done what they could for it;
+and it lay there waiting for the rest, just as good as ever. Porter
+Hudson had looked at it longingly more than once; and it was only the
+day after the grand deer-hunt on the crust that he said to Susie,--
+
+"Now, don't you say a word about it to any one. Put your skates under
+your shawl, and walk on down to the village with me. I'll wrap up mine
+in a bundle."
+
+"What if anybody should see us? Who cares? I don't."
+
+"Why, Susie, don't you see? We'll be out with all the rest before long.
+We haven't been on our skates since we were at the rink last winter. I
+don't feel more'n half sure I could stand up on mine."
+
+"No, nor I: that's a fact. We must have some practice first, or they'll
+think we're just learning."
+
+They felt very wise about it, but they had no notion whatever that
+precisely such an idea had occurred to Vosh Stebbins. His mother had not
+minded his getting home pretty late on the two or three evenings when
+she knew he was educating his feet and ankles before showing Susie
+Hudson and her brother what a country boy could do on good ice.
+
+"Your father," she said to him, "was the best skater in the valley, and
+you ort to be. Get your skates filed, Lavawjer." And she told him a
+great deal about ice and skating before she felt satisfied that he knew
+what might some day be required of him as being her son and the smartest
+boy in Benton Valley.
+
+So it came to pass, the day after the hunt, while Penelope and her
+brother and Vosh and all the other boys and girls were safely shut up in
+the village school-house, the boy and girl from the city were out upon
+the ice. They even took pains to keep at the upper end of the pond and
+on the river above it, so that not one critical pair of eyes should
+discover what they were about. It was a complete success, as far as
+secrecy was concerned, and nearly so in other respects. The first trial
+could not be too long, but it compelled Port to remark when they set out
+for home,--
+
+"How stiff and lame I am!"
+
+"Port," replied Susie, "I can't but just walk."
+
+"We must try it again right off," said Port, "or it won't do. If we can
+manage it to get down there two or three times more"--
+
+"Without any one seeing us"--
+
+"We can skate as well as we ever could: shouldn't wonder if it surprised
+'em."
+
+Vosh had had a sort of surprise in his own mind, and he had worked it up
+among the other boys. It came out only a few evenings later, when aunt
+Judith was compelled to exclaim at the supper-table,--
+
+"Skating-party on the ice! Who ever heard tell of such a thing! After
+dark too!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Corry gravely: "the skating's to be done on the
+ice,--all over it. There'll be the biggest bonfires you ever saw, and
+there'll be good moonlight too."
+
+"Sakes alive!--Susie, would you like to go and look on for a while?"
+
+"Indeed I would! Now, aunt Judith, you and aunt Sarah both go, and take
+Pen and me."
+
+There was a little discussion of the matter, of course; but the deacon
+settled it.
+
+"I used to think there wasn't any thing much better'n a skate by
+moonlight. It won't pay to hitch up a team, but I'll walk over with you.
+Let's all go."
+
+The first whisper Port gave to Susie after supper was,--
+
+"Hide your skates. I'll let 'em see mine: they don't know I can stand on
+'em."
+
+Corry was right about the moon, and the evening was wonderfully clear
+and bright.
+
+"Plenty of light to skate by," said the deacon when they started; but
+even he had to admit that the village boys had done themselves credit,
+when he reached the pond, and saw the bonfires.
+
+There must have been nearly a dozen of them strung along from the dam to
+the mouth of the little river on both shores; and one big one flared up
+right in the middle of the pond.
+
+"It'll melt through," said Pen.
+
+"Guess not," replied her brother. "The ice is awful thick."
+
+There were a good many merry skaters already at work; and there were
+groups of spectators here and there, for the fires made the scene well
+worth coming to look at.
+
+"Susie," said Vosh, "how I do wish you knew how to skate!"
+
+"Let me see how you can do it. I'll look on a little while."
+
+She felt almost conscience-smitten about her intended fun; but she kept
+her secret until all the boys had strapped on their skates, and she
+heard Vosh say to Port,--
+
+"Can you get up alone? Shall I help you?"
+
+"No, I guess not. Can you cut a figure 8, this way? Come on, Vosh, catch
+me if you can!"
+
+"Corry!" exclaimed Pen, "Port can skate. See him go!"
+
+"I declare!" remarked the deacon, "so he can."
+
+"So can Vosh," said Mrs. Stebbins. "There ain't any city boy going to
+beat him right away."
+
+Vosh's effort to find out if that were true had already carried him so
+far away, that, the moment Corry followed him, Susie felt safe to say,--
+
+"Now, uncle Joshua, if you will help me buckle my skates"--
+
+She was in such a fever to get them on, that she hardly heard the storm
+of remarks from Mrs. Stebbins and aunt Judith; but the deacon seemed to
+take an understanding interest in the matter, and he was right down on
+his knees on the ice, hurrying to fasten those skates for her.
+
+"Can you really skate, Susie?"
+
+"I'll show you in a minute. Please do hurry, before either of them
+suspect any thing."
+
+"O Susie!" said Pen mournfully, "I do wish I could."
+
+"You must learn some day."
+
+"Susie!" exclaimed aunt Judith, "wait for somebody to go with ye: you
+might tumble down."
+
+"Start, now, Susie," said her uncle. "Off with you!"
+
+She was really a very graceful skater; and her aunts looked on with
+admiration, as well as a vast deal of astonishment, while she made a few
+whirls near by, to make sure her skates were on rightly. Then away she
+glided over the ice; and the first thing Vosh Stebbins knew of it was
+when the form of a young lady fluttered swiftly past him, between him
+and the glare of the great central bonfire. Her face was turned the
+other way, and his first exclamation was,--
+
+"What a splendid skater! Who can she be?"
+
+"I know," said Port Hudson, close at hand, and waiting for his share of
+the joke. "She's a girl from the city, and she's spending the winter
+with some relatives of mine. Come on: I'm going after her. Think you can
+keep up? Come on, Vosh."
+
+Away went Porter, just as his friend felt a great hot flush come into
+his face, and dashed after them, exclaiming,--
+
+"If I ain't stupid! Why, it's Susie Hudson herself!"
+
+He felt as if his honor were at stake, and he had never skated so in all
+his life before. The fires on the bank seemed to flit by him as he
+followed that solitary girl-skater around the glittering icy reaches of
+the mill-pond. It looked so like a race, that almost everybody else
+paused to watch, and some even cheered. Deacon Farnham himself
+shouted,--
+
+"Hurrah for Susie!" and Pen danced up and down.
+
+"It's jest wonderful," said aunt Judith, "to see her go off that way the
+very first time."
+
+"Guess it isn't quite the first skatin' she ever did," said Mrs.
+Stebbins; "but Vosh'll ketch her, now, you see'f he don't."
+
+Susie had somehow got it into her head that she did not mean to be
+caught, and her practice was all in her favor; but just as she reached
+the head of the pond, and made a quick turn into the winding channel of
+the river, Vosh came swinging along at her side, and for a little
+distance he did not speak a word to her.
+
+"Vosh," she said, after trying very hard to think of something else to
+say, "I wish you'd teach me to skate."
+
+A ringing laugh was all his answer for a moment, and then he remarked
+innocently,--
+
+"The ice is smoother up this way, but I mustn't let you get too far from
+the folks. Tire you all out skating back again."
+
+On they went, while all the people they had left behind them, except
+their own, were inquiring of each other who the young lady could be that
+had so astonished them.
+
+Oddly enough, the Benton girls had omitted skating from their list of
+accomplishments, by a kind of common consent; and Susie's bit of fun had
+a surprise in it for others besides Vosh and her aunts. It was quite
+likely she would have imitators thereafter, but she had made an
+unexpected sensation that evening.
+
+Even Port had surprised Corry and the Benton boys, although some of them
+were every way his equals on the ice.
+
+"Now, Vosh," remarked Susie at the end of nearly a mile of that crooked
+ice-path, "we'd better go back. Are you tired?"
+
+"Tired! I could skate all night. We'd better go, though, or aunt
+Judith'll borrow a pair, and come skating along after us."
+
+Down the river they went again, and across the pond; and by that time a
+score of busy tongues were circulating the discovery.
+
+"It's that there city cousin of the Farnhams. She learned how to skate
+when she was travellin' in Russia."
+
+Part of that news may have had some help from Corry; but Susie's aunts
+were glad to get her back again, and Mrs. Stebbins said to her,--
+
+"You never did look prettier nor nicer. I do jest like to see any gal
+nowadays that ain't afraid of her shadder."
+
+"Guess Susie isn't much afraid of any thing," said Pen; "but I'm awful
+glad there wasn't any holes in the ice."
+
+"No air-holes are needed on a mill-pond," said Mr. Farnham; "but, if I'm
+not mistaken, there'll be some lame young people to-morrow. Nobody feels
+very well the day after such a race as that."
+
+He was not altogether wrong. Susie felt pretty well the next day, but in
+spite of her practising beforehand, her race with Vosh Stebbins had been
+a severe one; and, to tell the full truth, he himself was willing to get
+over the effects of it before volunteering to try another.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A VERY EXCITING WINTER EVENING.
+
+
+The people of Benton valley and village had not been ignorant of the
+fact that Deacon Joshua Farnham's family had some city cousins spending
+the winter with them. Some had said at first that they were there for
+their health, and some that they were orphans and had come to stay; but
+the facts of the case got around after a while.
+
+Susie and Port had made some acquaintances at the donation, and some at
+the spelling-match, and some at the meeting-house; but people had not
+exactly made up their minds what to do about them. Now came the
+altogether sensational affair of the moonlight skating-race on the
+mill-pond, and something had got to be done.
+
+Away over on the other side of the valley, and just in the outer edge of
+the village, stood a great white, square box of a house, larger than any
+other house within ten miles of it. Squire King was by all odds the
+richest man in that circumference, and he had built his house large
+accordingly. Mrs. King was not exactly proud, although she knew she was
+rich, and that she had been to Europe once, and to a number of notable
+places in the United States. Neither she, nor any other woman in or
+about Benton, was in a position to look down upon the Farnhams. She
+liked them, as did everybody else, and was a little in awe of aunt
+Judith; but she had not felt any social duty in the matter of their
+visitors until she was told of the skating. It had really been pretty
+well done on the ice, but it was tenfold more wonderful when it was
+described in Mrs. King's dining-room. Even Squire King himself dropped
+his newspaper, and listened, and asked, "What's the world coming to?"
+And Mrs. King's three lady neighbors who were telling her about it were
+unable to answer him. They all said, however, that it was time some
+special attention should be paid, and that such a young lady must be
+worth getting acquainted with. So had said every girl in the valley who
+felt old enough to skate; and quite a number of well-grown boys decided
+to learn new "curly q's" on the ice. Every boy of them had a bump on the
+back of his head within three days, and the pond was less like a
+looking-glass than formerly; but Mrs. Squire King had made up her own
+mind in less time than that, without any headache. There should be a
+young people's party at her house; and her husband agreed with her, that
+the nearer they could fill it up, and leave standing-room, the better.
+
+"Do it right away, Addie," said he. "Do it right up to the handle. Kind
+of startle folks. Nobody's a-looking for any such thing to come."
+
+It was to be all sorts of a surprise; and the whole valley went about
+its affairs, just the same as if Mrs. Squire King were not manufacturing
+so much frosted cake, and boiling tongues and hams for sandwiches. Some
+other tongues would have been hot enough if they had known a word about
+it before the invitations were written and sent out.
+
+Up at Deacon Farnham's it was a little quieter than it was anywhere else
+the day after the skating, until he himself came in from the village at
+noon. He had come for his dinner, but there was a look in his face as if
+he had brought something. Pen had seen it there before; and she asked
+him what it was to be, precisely as if he had spoken about it.
+
+"What have I got? How do you know I've got any thing?"
+
+"Is it something for me?"
+
+"No, not this time, Pen; but I've something for Port and Susie."
+
+"Letters, uncle!" exclaimed Susie; and Mrs. Farnham added,--
+
+"I do hope so. She's been fairly mourning for some, day after day."
+
+"It's all a mistake or neglect of somebody in your father's office in
+the city, Susie. There's three for you, and one is a fat one. Where's
+Port? There's as many for him."
+
+Port was out at the barn; but Pen found him, and brought him in, as if
+his life depended upon getting those letters at once.
+
+"Mother! Father!" said Susie, with a face that changed fast from red to
+pale, and back again, as she dropped into aunt Judith's big
+rocking-chair, and began to read those letters.
+
+"Is it all good news?" asked Mrs. Farnham in a minute or so.
+
+"All perfect, aunt Sarah. Mother seems to be doing very well."
+
+She read on and on; and Port had now come in, and was doing the same;
+and it was as if with one voice they suddenly exclaimed,--
+
+"How strange it seems!"
+
+"What is so strange?" asked aunt Judith in almost a tone of alarm. "Did
+any thing happen to either of 'em?"
+
+"Happen! No, indeed, but it's warm weather there. Father complains of
+the heat. Green grass and trees, and flowers and birds, and no sign of
+winter! Seems as if it couldn't be in the same world."
+
+"I don't half believe I'd like that kind of winter weather, anyhow,"
+said aunt Judith with emphasis. "When it's time for snow, I want snow,
+and plenty of it. 'Pears like to me, it would be kind of unnatural
+without sleighin'. Now, this here winter's been the most satisfactory
+we've had for four years past. It's been a real genuine, old-fashioned,
+right down cold and snowy winter."
+
+"And it's getting colder now," said Deacon Farnham. "There's no telling
+where the thermometer'll go to, if it keeps on trying."
+
+Nevertheless there was a curiously pleasant feeling to be had in
+listening to those accounts of the different condition of things in
+Florida; and Port was justified in remarking,--
+
+"I'd like a little of that balmy air for a while in the morning, but I
+wouldn't care so much for it after I once got well a-going."
+
+"I would," said Pen. "I could go a-sleighing, and keep my feet warm all
+the while."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if people down there would like a little of our ice at
+this very time," said her father; while Susie herself declared, that,
+except for seeing her mother and father, she did not wish to exchange
+winters with them.
+
+When Corry came home in the afternoon, the first thing he said was, that
+he was glad Pen had returned at the midday "letting-out."
+
+"The wind blows down the hill with an edge like a knife, and they say
+it's away below zero."
+
+"It's coldest at the foot of the hill," said Pen confidently; and then,
+while Corry was warming himself, Susie and Port read to him tantalizing
+things about orange-groves and magnolia-trees and sunshine, and
+boat-rides on the St. John's River, away down in the sunny South.
+
+"That's where De Soto hunted for the Fountain of Youth," said Corry;
+"and I guess Eden must have been around there somewhere. It wasn't down
+in Benton Valley, anyhow you can fix it."
+
+"Nonsense!" said aunt Judith. "You'd get sick of any kind of Eden that
+didn't need a fireplace for six months in the year."
+
+Corry's ears were beginning to feel better, and his opinion of the
+weather he was accustomed to improved as the tingling subsided. Still he
+was quite willing to discuss a little more fully the wonder of tropical
+and semi-tropical lands. Even after chores were attended to, and supper
+was eaten, and the whole family gathered in the sitting-room, they all
+seemed to feel more like talking than any thing else. Of course the
+knitting went on as usual, and Pen asserted that her next undertaking in
+yarn was to be a pair of stockings for Porter Hudson. It seemed as if
+they had just got fairly settled, before the front-gate opened with a
+great frosty creak, as if it pained the hinges to be swung upon in such
+cold weather, and the sound of a well-known voice came faintly to the
+door.
+
+"If it isn't Mrs. Stebbins!" exclaimed Pen; and her mother said,--
+
+"Glad she's come. It isn't far, but it's neighborly for her to look in
+on such a night as this."
+
+"Hope Vosh is with her," said Corry as he stepped towards the door; and
+so he was. But they both had come upon something more than a mere
+neighborly call. Hardly was Mrs. Stebbins inside of the door, before she
+exclaimed sharply,--
+
+"Joshaway Farnham, it's a wolf, I know it is! I heard it twice; and, if
+I don't know a wolf when he howls, it's because the whole country wasn't
+full on 'em when I was a gal. I've known a man that a'most made his
+livin' off the bounty they sot on wolf-skelps, till they found out that
+he was raisin' of 'em at a place he had away back under Sawbuck
+Mountain; and they paid as much for pups' ears as they did for growed-up
+wolves, and"--
+
+"Angeline Stebbins!" almost shouted aunt Judith, "what do you mean?
+There hasn't been a wolf down so far as this, these three years and
+more; and then they never came nigh any house except Josiah Rogers's
+hog-pen."
+
+"Fact, though, now, I guess," said Vosh. "I listened hard, and I believe
+I heard one howl."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder at all," said Mr. Farnham; "what between the deep
+snow, and the hard, cold snap. It isn't so much because they can't run
+down the deer so well, I believe, as because they somehow get bolder,
+and sort of crazy, in bitter frost. Did you hear more than one, Vosh?"
+
+"Can't say, unless the same one howled several times. I heard it first
+when I was out at the barn, and it sounded just in the edge of the
+woods."
+
+"I don't believe one could get at your stock very easily, or at mine.
+You don't feel like a tramp out after wolves on such a night as this?"
+
+"My gun's leaning against the door outside," said Vosh, "if you care to
+come along. Mother said she'd rather stay here till I got back."
+
+"No more chance of killing one than there is of flying," remarked Mrs.
+Farnham; "but if Joshaway wants to go"--
+
+The deacon's pleasant blue eyes had been kindling a little under their
+shaggy brows; and he was now slowly rising from his chair, and buttoning
+up his coat.
+
+"I'll go as far as the woods with you, Vosh, and see what's the
+matter.--We won't be gone a great while, Sarah. I'll only take my
+double-barrel: a rifle's of no use by moonlight. Where are Port and
+Corry?"
+
+Nobody had seen them slip away; but their chairs had been empty from the
+moment when they heard the word "wolf," and saw Vosh Stebbins's
+shot-pouch slung over his shoulder. The deacon had hardly picked up his
+overcoat, before they were in the room again, loaded with guns and
+shot-pouches.
+
+"Going for wolves, are you?" said the deacon. "You won't kill any. Not
+one has been killed this side of Sawbuck Mountain for years and years.
+Come along. Wrap your ears up, and put an extra slug into each barrel on
+top of the buckshot."
+
+Rifle-bullets answered capitally well for slugs, and even Pen and Susie
+felt a tingling all over when they saw those guns loaded. Ponto was
+called in from the kitchen; and he too seemed to be all tingle, as soon
+as he saw the hunt-like look of matters.
+
+"He couldn't whip a wolf," said Corry, "but he might be of some kind of
+use."
+
+"My father had a dog once," began Mrs. Stebbins; but she was interrupted
+by aunt Judith with,--
+
+"Now, Angeline, you sit right down, and we'll have up some krullers and
+some cider; and they'll all be frosted back again in time to eat their
+share of 'em."
+
+Ponto was doomed to disappointment that time; for Mr. Farnham, on second
+thought, fastened him up in the kitchen again, remarking,--
+
+"He'd only spoil any other chance we might have.--Come on, boys. Judith
+is pretty nearly correct about the weather, and I guess I'm right about
+the wolves."
+
+"I heard 'em," said Mrs. Stebbins; "but they didn't say they'd sit down
+under a tree and wait till you came along."
+
+They were hurrying out of the door as she said that, and there was no
+danger of their walking slowly. They had not reached the gate, before
+Mr. Farnham straightened up, exclaiming,--
+
+"I declare! Hark!"
+
+It was neither so faint nor so far away that they could not hear it; and
+it might have been the howl of a lost dog, for all that Porter Hudson
+would have known. There was a hurrying up the road, after that; and the
+frost was all but forgotten in the excitement of getting to the woods as
+soon as possible. There was hardly any talking done; and the snow of the
+road broke with a brittle, cracking sound under their feet.
+
+"There it is again!" said Vosh at last, as they drew near the shadows of
+the forest; "and it sounds as if it were nearer."
+
+"Nearer it is," said the deacon, "and so is something else. I'd like to
+know, now, just how many miles they've been chasing that deer. Hear him
+jump?"
+
+His ears were better trained than those of his young companions, for he
+had all his life been a keen sportsman; but, on listening attentively,
+they all declared, one after another, that they could hear something.
+Again they heard the voices that were coming nearer, but they were more
+like yelps than howls this time; and Mr. Farnham at once asserted,--
+
+"They are gaining on him. He has turned again, and is coming this way:
+shouldn't wonder if they'd been after him all day. Hold still, boys:
+better chance out in the open."
+
+Yelp, yelp, jump, jump! and the hunters were shivering with cold and
+excitement, for they knew not how many or how few minutes more; and
+then, out through the frosty trees, in his last desperate race for life,
+dashed an all but tired-out buck. He had run well and far, but he had
+reached the limit of his strength. He hardly noticed the four hunters,
+in his fear of the enemies behind him. Not one of them thought of
+lifting a gun at him; but, just as a staggering leap carried him down
+from a snow-drift into the road, he slipped and fell. A few seconds
+earlier, Vosh had hoarsely whispered,--
+
+"There they come,--pair of 'em!" And two long, dark forms, that seemed
+to glide on in a series of silent undulations, were only a few rods
+behind the buck.
+
+"They'll get him," said Port, with a keen sense that his blood was
+warming suddenly.
+
+"Father!" exclaimed Corry, "you say when."
+
+Before the buck could regain his feet, his fierce pursuers were upon him
+with savage snarls, and his race for life was over. There was a vivid
+picture of forest-life for one tremendous moment, there in the middle of
+the road; but within thirty yards were the four sportsmen, and their
+guns were at their shoulders.
+
+"Keep your second barrels for a moment," said the deacon. "Be sure of
+your aim. Now!"
+
+The four reports followed one another in swift succession, and a storm
+of slugs and buckshot was hurled into the struggling group in the road.
+The buck was down already, but he rolled clean over now. One wolf lay
+kicking on the snow beside him, while the other gave a bound and a yelp
+that told of a shot reaching him.
+
+"Take that one, all of you! the other's done for. Quick!"
+
+The deacon fired as he spoke, and the rest followed so fast that nobody
+could even so much as guess who killed that wolf.
+
+Down he went, and the sudden hunt was all over. Two wolves had run down
+a deer, only to deliver their own peltry with it to the astonished
+sportsmen they had summoned by their ill-advised howling.
+
+Porter Hudson could hardly believe his ears and eyes. He had heard of
+wonderful hunting, and now he had actually done some on his own account.
+There were the forest savages dead in the road; and there was Deacon
+Farnham finishing up the deer, and saying,--
+
+"We couldn't have done that if Ponto had been here: he'd have rushed
+forward, and been in the way of our shooting. We'd have lost both of
+them."
+
+"We've got 'em now," said Vosh.
+
+"One skin's yours, and half of the buck," said the deacon; "and now we'd
+better go for your colt and a sled, and haul 'em home."
+
+That was bitter cold work, but nobody seemed to care where zero was just
+then. The sled was brought and loaded, and then it was drawn to the very
+kitchen-door of the Farnham farmhouse.
+
+Ponto's nose had told him something, and he was barking furiously at the
+other side of that door. Lights were hurrying into the kitchen, and the
+door sprang nervously open.
+
+"Joshaway, what's this? Was anybody hurt? We heard the firing," gasped
+Mrs. Farnham in a tone of intense anxiety.
+
+"Oh, it's awful!" began Pen, but aunt Judith was calmer.
+
+"Got a buck, did ye? It wasn't that that did the howling."
+
+"Sakes alive!" shouted Mrs. Stebbins. "That's a wolf! I knew Vosh would
+kill something. Two on 'em? Two wolves and a deer? And you wasn't gone
+no time at all; but Sarah and Judith, they said it seemed as if you was
+going to stay all night.--Pen, don't you tetch 'em.--Susie, what do you
+think of that?--Joshaway Farnham, don't you ever tell me again that I
+don't know the kind of howl a wolf makes."
+
+There she paused for a moment, and the hunters had a chance to tell how
+that very remarkable affair had actually come to pass.
+
+"Just so," said aunt Judith. "It was the buck tolled 'em down for ye.
+They'd never have dreamed of coming, frost or no frost, if they hadn't
+been a-follerin' of that deer."
+
+She was entirely correct, but it was pretty late that night before all
+was quiet in either of those two farmhouses. The game was slung up to
+the rafters of the woodshed, to be more thoroughly attended to in the
+morning. The excitement could not be slung up anywhere, and Susie Hudson
+was aware of a grisly feeling that the country was hardly as safe a
+place as she had been in the habit of thinking. She was very glad,
+however, that there were guns in the house, and she all but wished that
+she knew how to load and fire one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A FIRESIDE STORY.
+
+
+Porter Hudson had a great deal upon his hands the forenoon following the
+coming of those wolves. He had to see his uncle take off their skins and
+that of the buck; and he had a great many questions to ask about wild
+animals in general, and wolves in particular. Pen had informed him,
+before she went to school, that the two wolf-skins were to be turned
+into buffalo-robes for Vosh's cutter and her father's big sleigh. She
+may also have been correct when she added, "They're the best kind of
+blankets you can get." Susie herself took an interest in that, for she
+was already crocheting the most fanciful red border she could think of
+for the rich fur of the wildcat they had brought home from Mink Lake. It
+promised to be an uncommonly brilliant lamp-mat.
+
+As for Vosh and Corry and Pen, they were even eager to get to school
+early. The people of Benton Valley would know nothing about the wolves
+until the story should be set a-going. All three of them told it well,
+not only after they reached the school-house, but to some acquaintances
+whom they met on the way. If Pen's version was hardly as correct as the
+other two, there was certainly more of it; but her improvements were as
+nothing to those it received afterwards. Every boy and girl that heard
+it carried it home in a different shape. As many as could do so at noon
+were especially happy on that account; and such as lived too far away,
+and had brought luncheons with them, got along as well as they could,
+holding in, and hoping that they would still be the first to tell it to
+their folks.
+
+Some were sure to be disappointed, for such news travels fast. One
+farmer who was in the village with a load of oats never waited to dicker
+about the price he sold them at, but got away at once, and stopped at
+six houses before he reached his own. By supper-time there were elderly
+ladies in the village who felt like bracing their front-gates with
+boards, and wondered if the wolves were really going to pester the
+village all winter. Perhaps the best and most vivid account of the fight
+was given by one small boy to Elder Keyser and his wife to carry home to
+Cobbleville. His description was very good, of how the buck led the
+wolves into Deacon Farnham's kitchen; and how Mrs. Farnham and aunt
+Judith and Mrs. Stebbins, and Susie Hudson and Pen, were there all
+alone, eating apples, till the men came in from hunting, and helped
+them. The elder had a meeting to go to that evening, or he would have
+driven over at once to inquire into the matter, and see if any of the
+family were really very badly bitten by those ferocious wild beasts. He
+took "Wolves in sheep's clothing" as a text for his next sermon, and it
+was most attentively listened to. Elder Evans and his wife got out their
+horse and cutter at once, and went in a hurry: so did Mrs. Squire King,
+only she took her big double sleigh, with the longest gilded goose-necks
+in that whole region. There were six ladies in it by the time she
+reached the foot of the hill below the Farnham homestead; for she was a
+good neighbor, and loved company. Somebody was out looking at the
+wolf-skins until nearly tea-time; but not one soul would stay to tea,
+after obtaining all the facts of that affair to go home with.
+
+All that Mrs. Squire King saw of Susie Hudson made her feel more in
+earnest about the party; but she resolutely sealed her lips over it,
+except in a small bit of confidential talk with aunt Judith and Mrs.
+Farnham, and the five ladies who went with her in her own sleigh to see
+about the wolves.
+
+It was a very busy tea-table, for ever so many people had to be talked
+about, and what they said had to be repeated; and Pen broke down
+entirely in trying to rehearse a wolf-story the teacher had told the
+scholars who staid in at noon. It turned out to have been a tiger-story
+with an elephant in it, and Pen had added the snow on her own
+responsibility.
+
+After tea a little while, Vosh came over with a sled to get his
+wolf-skin and his share of the buck; and it would have been a small
+miracle if his mother had not come with him. The weather was every bit
+as cold as it had been the night before, and she said so as she entered
+the house.
+
+"Never mind, Angeline," said aunt Judith. "Sit right down, and take off
+your things, and there won't be any howling done to-night."
+
+"I jest do hope not, Judith Farnham, for I waked up nine times afore
+mornin' last night, and each time I was kind o' dreaming that I heard
+something; and it kep' me every now and then, all day, a-remembering
+that story of old Mrs. Lucas and Alvin Lucas, and that was ever so long
+ago. And it always did seem to me one of the queerest things; and you
+can't account for it, nohow."
+
+"What was it, Mrs. Stebbins?" asked Susie. "Couldn't you tell us the
+story?"
+
+They were all sitting around the fireplace; and Susie was gazing at a
+flickering blaze on the top log, or she might have noticed that her
+uncle and aunts had not said a word.
+
+"Tell it? Well, I s'pose I can; but it isn't much of a story, after all.
+They do say that story-tellin's a good thing of a winter evening, when
+it's as cold as this; but I wasn't ever much of a hand at it, and it's
+got to be an old story now, what there is of it."
+
+Vosh had no doubt heard the story, and knew what was coming; but both
+Corry and Pen joined with Port and Susie to urge Mrs. Stebbins a little.
+The deacon was still silent, and aunt Judith and Mrs. Farnham seemed to
+be knitting more rapidly than usual. Mrs. Stebbins hemmed twice to clear
+her throat, and drank some cider, and said it was a good thing to know
+how to keep it sweet all winter by putting in a chunk of lime while it
+was a-fermenting; and then she told her story.
+
+"There's a wolf in it," said Pen to Porter Hudson; but it went right
+along, just the same.
+
+"The Lucases they owned the farm we live on now; and it's a right good
+one, as soon as Vosh is old enough to handle it himself. That was away
+back when your uncle Joshaway was a young man, and he and Alvin Lucas
+were the closest kind of friends; and there wasn't a likelier young man
+around here than Alvin was, unless it was Vosh's father or your uncle
+Joshaway. It was before either one of 'em was married; and the war broke
+out the spring before, and it seemed as if all the young men was half
+crazy before harvestin' was over. There was eighteen of the very best
+and pick went right out from Benton Valley, and twice as many more from
+over Cobbleville way, first thing, as soon as the grain was in, and some
+of the after-ploughin' was done. It was queer, but somehow, when they
+came together, they elected Alvin Lucas captain of that company; and a
+young fellow from Cobbleville was next; and Levi Stebbins was only a
+corporal at first; and your uncle Joshaway was a private, but he got to
+be a major before the war was over; and Vosh's father he came home a
+captain, with a big scar on his right arm, and he'd lost one of his
+front teeth in a scrimmage. But I must go right on to the wolf part."
+
+"O Mrs. Stebbins!" exclaimed Pen with a long breath, "I'd forgot all
+about the war."
+
+"So has most people," said Mrs. Stebbins; "and it's well they have, for
+it's only a root of bitterness now, and it ort not to be dug up for ever
+and ever. But that first winter after the war begun was an awful cold
+one, up hereaway. Leastwise, there kem a bitter snap, like the one we're
+having now; and somehow it seemed as if we never missed all those young
+men so much, not even in the fall work, as we did after winter sot in.
+There was a good many fire-places like this all over the country, where
+the folks missed the best face they had, for the one that isn't there
+always kind o' seems to be the best; and old Mrs. Lucas she counted on
+Alvin, most likely, a good deal as I do on Vosh. He was away down on the
+Potomac with his company, and there hadn't been a man of 'em hurt up to
+the time of that cold snap, and they sent letters home as reg'lar as
+clock-work; and people thought the war wasn't sech a dreadful thing,
+after all, so long as nobody got killed from Benton Valley and
+Cobbleville. Your folks lived right here, and mine away over on the
+other hill, nigh the dividing-line into the Sanders school-district; and
+your grandfather and grandmother Farnham were alive, and Susie Farnham
+she hadn't married Reuben Hudson and gone to the city, and Judith she
+was a young woman; and those two gals was at home with the old folks one
+evening"--
+
+Just then Deacon Farnham got up from his chair, and sat down again; and
+aunt Judith rubbed her spectacles very hard indeed, and Mrs. Farnham
+looked at her, sidling, as if to see if she were interested in the
+story; and Pen looked around at every one, for she knew that Mrs.
+Stebbins must be getting pretty near the wolf now.
+
+"It was one bitter cold night, and all the Lucases were at home, except,
+of course, Alvin; and there were four younger than he was; but he was
+the likeliest, as well as the oldest, and his next brother didn't go
+into the war till the second year. Old Mrs. Lucas wasn't nervous
+generally, but that night there seemed to be something the matter with
+her; and it was as dark as a pocket, as well as being so cold you could
+hardly keep the hens from freezing. She kept a-going to the window; and
+her husband, I heard him tell my mother about it, how she seemed to be
+listening for something, and all of a sudden she broke out, 'John, it's
+a wolf! Hear him! He's out there in the road! Something's happened to
+Alvin!' Now, I ain't a mite superstitious, and she wasn't, and John
+Lucas wasn't; but there was a charge of buckshot in his gun, and he took
+it up, and went right out"--
+
+"Was the wolf there?" asked Pen with widely open eyes; for Mrs. Stebbins
+paused a moment, as if for breath, and aunt Judith's knitting had
+dropped into her lap, and she was staring hard at the fire.
+
+"Yes, Pen," went on Mrs. Stebbins, "and he was nigher the house, and he
+howled again; and he sot still, and held his head up to howl, till John
+Lucas and his next son--Roger, his name was--got within shot of him; for
+he was crazed with the frost, jest as wolves will get in sech times."
+
+"Did they kill him?" asked Corry.
+
+"Dead as a mackerel," said Mrs. Stebbins. "And he was the biggest kind;
+but it didn't seem to comfort Mrs. Lucas a mite, and it was the
+strangest kind of a thing, after all. There isn't any superstition in
+me: but, when the next letters kem from the war, there'd been a
+scrimmage on the Potomac that very night; and Capt. Alvin Lucas, and
+four men from Benton Valley, and twice as many from Cobbleville, had
+been killed in it."
+
+"I don't believe the wolf knew a word about the skirmish," said Port.
+"He couldn't, you know."
+
+"Besides," said Pen, "they shot him; and he couldn't go all around the
+valley, and over to Cobbleville, and howl for the other folks."
+
+Susie was just going to say something to aunt Sarah about it; but she
+and aunt Judith had suddenly arisen, and were walking out into the
+kitchen. Mrs. Stebbins looked down at her knitting, just the same, and
+finished her story as she toed out the last half-inch of that stocking.
+
+"It kem awful hard on John Lucas, and he sold out his farm that next
+spring, and went West; and Levi Stebbins bought it as soon as his army
+time was ended, and he could come home again; and Joshaway he staid in
+till it was all over. Old Mrs. Lucas, it took her awful; but she was a
+good woman, for she said she couldn't get her mind right about losing
+Alvin till she could feel to sympathize with the mothers of men that was
+killed on the other side. I never had no trouble about that, for Levi he
+always spoke well of the Southern soldiers, and so did your uncle
+Joshaway; and mothers are mothers, no matter where you find 'em."
+
+Mrs. Stebbins was quiet for a moment, and then remarked,--
+
+"Lavawjer, it's time we was a-going home."
+
+"I guess it is, mother."
+
+It was while she was getting on her things that Deacon Farnham beckoned
+Susie Hudson away into the parlor entry for a moment, and whispered to
+her,--
+
+"You are old enough to know some things, Susie. Don't say any thing more
+about that story. Speak to Port, and I will to Corry. Your aunt Sarah's
+elder brother was the first man killed in that skirmish: that was what
+came to her."
+
+"And aunt Judith?"
+
+"Capt. Lucas. They were engaged."
+
+"O uncle Joshua!"
+
+"That is what the war meant to both sides, my dear."
+
+"I'm glad it was ever so long ago, and we don't know any thing about
+it," said Susie; and that was about what Port said when they spoke to
+him. It was not much of a wolf-story, after all, but it had helped away
+a winter evening, and perhaps it had done something more; for the boys
+and girls of one generation should not be ignorant, altogether, of the
+sufferings and sacrifices of those who have lived and died before they
+came to take their turn at it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE BEAR-TRAP.
+
+
+When the family came down to breakfast the next morning, it looked as if
+every thing but the venison-steaks and johnnycake and hot coffee had
+been forgotten. The steaks were capital; and as for the johnnycake,
+nobody in all Benton Valley could beat aunt Judith at that sort of
+thing. She was proud of her skill, and liked to see its products eaten;
+but even as Porter Hudson was helping himself to his third slice, she
+said to him,--
+
+"Once, when I was a girl, I remember being out of bread for a whole
+week."
+
+"O aunt Judith!" exclaimed Pen, "didn't you eat any thing?"
+
+"We had plenty of milk and pork and eggs and poultry, and we didn't
+starve. We pounded corn in a mortar and made samp, and we hulled some
+corn and made hominy, and ate it, and did capitally well."
+
+"I think I could live a while on such starvation as that," remarked
+Susie, "especially if I had maple-sugar to melt down, and pour on the
+samp."
+
+"We had some," said aunt Judith; "but we were just about out of flour
+and meal, when there came a thaw and a freshet; and the mill-dams all
+gave way, as if they'd agreed to go down together; and we had to wait
+till the mills got to running again. It wasn't easy to get a grist
+ground, even then; but we didn't suffer any. Folks sent ever so far for
+flour; but there wasn't any railroad then, and the roads were awful for
+a few weeks. There used to be great freshets in those days."
+
+"That's a thing that might come any time after the bears turn over,"
+said Mr. Farnham; and Port instantly asked him,--
+
+"After the bears turn over! What have they to do with it?"
+
+"Didn't you know that? Well, well! You're a city boy, and don't have any
+bears at home. Every bear hunts up a hollow tree as soon as it's too
+cold for him to get around in the woods comfortably, and sits down
+before it till there's a heavy snow. Then he creeps in, and gets the
+hole snowed up, and goes to sleep. He never dreams of waking up till
+spring; but, as soon as the sun is hot enough to warm the tree on one
+side, it makes him comfortable on that side of him, and he turns over in
+his sleep to warm the other. It's a sure sign of a thaw; and the snow
+melts pretty fast after that, till it's time for him to creep out and
+get something to eat."
+
+"How hungry he must be!" said Pen.
+
+"When is the best time to hunt for bears?" asked Port, with a dim idea
+that he would like to boast of having killed a few.
+
+"Along in the fall, when the nuts are coming down. They're fattest then.
+They trap 'em every year all through the mountain country north."
+
+"Trap 'em! Is there any trap big enough to catch a bear in?" asked Port.
+
+"Big enough! I'd say so. And sometimes it's a wolf, or a wildcat, or a
+panther, instead of a bear; and I know of a man getting caught in one
+once."
+
+"Did he get out?" asked Pen.
+
+"I won't tell you about it now; but when we get into the sitting-room
+this evening, I'll let you know just how one man made a bear of himself
+away up on Sawbuck Mountain."
+
+That was something to look forward to; but not long after Corry and Pen
+had gone to school, Porter Hudson took his gun, and marched away to the
+woods, all alone by himself. The crust was still as firm as ever, and
+there had been no snow worth mentioning since the great storm.
+
+"I don't know exactly what I'm going to kill," he said to himself; "but
+I'm ready for any thing that comes."
+
+His first call for Ponto had been obeyed somewhat fatly and sluggishly;
+but, the moment the old dog saw the gun, he was another and a more
+willing animal. He led the way, head and tail up, until he came to the
+spot in the road where the wolves had pulled down the buck. The new
+snow, thin as it was, covered all traces of that adventure. But Ponto's
+memory, or nose, made him precisely accurate. Port was quite willing to
+stop a moment, and recall how that spot had looked in the moonlight, and
+how uncommonly loud and sharp had seemed to be the reports of the guns.
+All the hills had echoed them; and it occurred to him, that, if he
+should now meet a pack of wolves, he would have but two loads of
+buckshot, instead of eight.
+
+"And no slugs," he added. "I should have brought some along. I don't
+care, though. I could climb a small tree, and fire away."
+
+He afterwards noted quite a number of small trees well adapted to such
+business. So were some lower limbs of several larger trees, and he stood
+for a few minutes under one of these. He imagined himself sitting on
+that great projecting branch, climbing out to where it was ten feet
+above the snow, with a large pack of very ferocious and hungry wolves
+raging around below him, while he loaded and fired until the last of
+them had keeled over.
+
+"Wolves can't climb," he remarked to himself; and he felt that such an
+affair would be grand to tell of when he should get back to the city. It
+would make a sort of hero of him, and the wolves could be skinned right
+there. He enjoyed it mentally; but that particular pack of wild beasts,
+killed off, in his imagination, under that tree, were all the game, of
+any kind, that he obtained that day. Ponto did better, for he discovered
+innumerable tracks in the snow, and they seemed to answer his purposes
+admirably. He could sniff and bark, and run and come back again, and
+look up into Port's face as if he were saying, "There, I've had another
+hunt."
+
+Port had one. In fact, he hunted until he was sick of it, and decided
+that it was altogether too cold to hunt any longer. It seemed to him
+that he had been gone from the house a very long time indeed; and he was
+all but astonished, on his return, to discover that he was quite in
+season for dinner.
+
+"Didn't you see any thing whatever?" asked Susie. She had felt a little
+anxiety about him, considering what dreadful things the forest was known
+to contain, and was even relieved to have him reply,--
+
+"Not so much as one rabbit. You never heard any thing so still as the
+woods are."
+
+"Didn't know but what you might bring home a few deer," said Deacon
+Farnham, "or find a bear-tree."
+
+"I'm good and hungry, anyhow," said Port; "and it's the hardest kind of
+work, looking all around for nothing."
+
+He had not done that. No city boy can spend a morning in the winter
+forest, with a gun and a dog, without learning something. It is an
+experience he will not forget so long as he lives.
+
+Those had been great days for Vosh Stebbins. He felt that he had new
+duties on his hands ever since his new neighbors came, and was more and
+more inclined to hurry home from school in the afternoon, and get his
+chores done early. His mother remarked more than once that she had
+hardly one moment to say a word to him, and that he could split more
+wood in half an hour than any other boy in Benton Valley. Nevertheless
+it was at their own supper-table that evening that she said to him,--
+
+"We'd best not go over to the other house to-night, Lavawjer. We've been
+there a good deal lately, and I like to be neighborly, and it's a good
+idee to help 'em with their city cousins, and I never seen any that I
+took to more'n I do to Port and Susie Hudson; but there's reason in all
+things, and we mustn't be runnin' in too often."
+
+Vosh buttered another hot biscuit, and did not make any reply, because
+he could not think of the right one to make. It was made for him just a
+little after tea, when he told his mother that every thing he had to do
+was done. She had cleared away the tea things, and had taken her
+knitting, and both of them were sitting by their own fireplace.
+
+"Our sittin'-room," she said, "isn't as big as Joshaway Farnham's, and
+it doesn't call for more'n half so much fire; but it's a nice one, and I
+wish we had more folks into it. We must ask 'em all to come over some
+evening, and I'll see if I can't make 'em feel comfortable. I'll make
+some cake, and we've got a'most every thing else on hand. And that makes
+me think: I want Judith Farnham's new recipe for makin' the kind of cake
+she had Christmas and New-Year's; and you can put on your overcoat and
+come right over with me, and we won't stay one minute, and you mustn't
+let them get ye to talkin' about any thing." And Vosh was beginning to
+get ready before she reached that point. She put away her knitting at
+once, and said there was plenty of wood on the fire, for they were
+coming right back; and so Vosh piled on two more large logs, and they
+started. He may have had ideas of his own as to how much wood might burn
+while he and his mother were walking to Deacon Farnham's and returning.
+Some short walks are long ones, if the people who walk them are not
+careful.
+
+"I'm real glad they've come," said Mrs. Farnham the moment she heard her
+neighbors at the gate. "They're good company, too, and it must sometimes
+be kind of lonely for 'em,--only two in the house, and no young people."
+
+Her fireside had no lonely look, and it was all the brighter for those
+who now came in. It was of no manner of use for Mrs. Stebbins to speak
+about cake, and say she had not come to stay. Vosh settled himself at
+once with a hammer and a flat-iron and some hickory-nuts; and aunt
+Judith pulled up a rocking-chair, remarking,--
+
+"Now, Angeline, don't let us have any nonsense. Sit right down here and
+be comfortable. I'll make a copy of the receipt for you to-morrow, and I
+always put in more eggs than it calls for."
+
+"Vosh," said Pen, "you mustn't make too much noise. Father's going to
+tell a story. It's of a man that got lost in the woods, and made a bear
+of himself."
+
+"I've known fellows do that, and not go far into the woods either," said
+Vosh; and Susie thought a moment before she added,--
+
+"So have I. But then, some men can be bears, and not half try."
+
+The deacon laughed, and put down the apple he was paring.
+
+"I don't know if it's much of a story," said he; "but it has one
+advantage over some other stories, for it's a true one.--Take an apple,
+Mrs. Stebbins.--Corry, pass them to Vosh.--Pen, well, keep the cat in
+your lap if you want her."
+
+"Now," said aunt Judith, "I guess everybody's ready."
+
+"I won't go home till after the story, nohow," said Mrs. Stebbins; "but
+speaking of bears"--
+
+"Mother," interrupted Vosh, "you've dropped your yarn. Here it is."
+
+"Hem!" said the deacon. "There were more bears all around the country
+once than there are now, and they did more mischief. It was really worth
+while to take a hunt for 'em now and then; and there's always a good
+market for bear-skins, if you cure 'em well. The way my story came about
+was this:--
+
+"There was one November when the woods were just full of deer, and some
+young fellows from Benton Valley made up their minds they'd have a good
+hunt before the real cold weather came. There hadn't been just such an
+Indian summer for years and years, and camping out in the mountains was
+no kind of hardship. The nights were cold, but the days were warm; and
+all four of them were strapping young men, used to taking care of
+themselves, and brimful of fun.
+
+"They went up beyond Mink Lake, and it looked as if the deer kept away
+from them all that first day. They'd have gone to bed hungry, if it
+hadn't been for some fish they caught; and the next morning they made up
+their minds they'd go out singly, in different directions, and see which
+of them would do best. What was curious, they didn't have but one dog
+along, and his owner counted on having the most game, as a matter of
+course."
+
+"He was the man that got beared," whispered Pen to the cat in her lap;
+but her father went right on,--
+
+"The man that owned the dog started out from camp right along the slope
+of Sawbuck Mountain, northerly; and there are little lakes every mile or
+so, and they're just swarming with fish. He was following an old path
+that was pretty well marked. Maybe it was an old Indian trail; but white
+men had followed it in winter, for the trees were blazed, so you could
+follow it if there was snow on the ground to hide it."
+
+The deacon paused a moment, as if thinking how to go on; and Porter
+Hudson asked him eagerly,--
+
+"Did he have the kind of luck I had yesterday?"
+
+"Well, not exactly," replied his uncle. "Before it was ten o'clock by
+his watch, he had killed and hung up three deer. Real fat ones they
+were, too, and one of them was a seven-year-old buck with horns that
+were worth having."
+
+"'Pears to me," remarked Mrs. Stebbins, "the deer nowadays don't have
+the horns they did when I was a gal;" but the deacon went right on,--
+
+"He didn't know just how many miles he might be from camp; and he knew
+he'd need help in carrying in those deer, unless he should cut up the
+meat and set out to smoke it right there."
+
+"And good smoked deer-meat is something worth having," said his wife.
+
+"But he walked on for half a mile or so, just as if there was any use in
+going for another deer that day, till he came out into a sort of open.
+The land sloped down to the shore of a little lake as regularly and
+smoothly as if it had been cleared for a deer-pasture. There wasn't a
+deer on it just then; but right in the edge of the opening the hunter
+found something that set him a-thinking. It was the best bear-trap he
+had ever seen. There was a little ledge of rocks; and about the middle
+of it was a break that made a square place the size of a small bedroom,
+only it wasn't much more than six feet high by ten feet deep. The
+fellows that made the trap had built up the front with heavy upright
+logs to hang their gate on, and covered the top with logs."
+
+"Please, uncle Joshua," said Susie, "what is the gate for?"
+
+"To let the bears in. Did you ever see a figure 4 rat-trap? That's it.
+The gate lifts up, with a strong sapling for a hinge, and the ends of
+the sapling (that's the roller) are fitted into the logs at the sides.
+There's a long pole fitted into the gate to lift it by, and, when that's
+pulled down flat on top of the trap, the gate is up about level. There
+was a wooden catch geared through the roof of that trap so nicely, that,
+when the pole was in the notch of it, the trap was set to spring at any
+kind of pull on the bait. The lower end of that catch hung away back by
+the rock, and the whole machine was in prime order."
+
+"It was somebody else's trap," remarked Corry doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, he could see that nobody had been there that year. The timber was
+all seasoned, and there was grass growing against the gate. There was a
+good stiff latch, made with a deep notch in the logs to hold that gate
+after it came down; and, if a bear once shut himself in, there was no
+possibility of his getting out. The hunter looked it all over, and made
+up his mind he'd set the trap, and go back to the last deer he'd killed,
+and get some fresh meat for bait, and see if something could be done
+with it. It was some time before he could get at the pole so as to bring
+it down; but he worked it with a grape-vine for a rope, and it came into
+place perfectly. Then he went to his deer, and got his bait, and hurried
+back, as if he were afraid some beast or other would get caught before
+the bait was there to account for it. You use it just as you use toasted
+cheese in a rat-trap, only you tie it on, so it'll take a hard pull to
+get it off. A bear is sure to pull, and that springs the trap; a panther
+isn't so apt to be stupid about it; and a wolf won't, unless he's
+hungry. They're more cunning than a bear is, anyhow."
+
+"He didn't toast the whole deer, and put him on?" said Pen.
+
+"No, he didn't toast any thing; but he was hard at work, tying all he
+had taken from the inside of that deer to the catch of the trap, when
+something happened that he hadn't been looking for."
+
+"Was it a bear?" said Pen.
+
+"Worse than that. He had pulled too hard on the catch, and it had
+slipped the pole free, and down came the gate with a bang, and he had
+trapped himself completely. The gate just missed the dog when it fell,
+but it left him outside. The first thing the hunter did was to laugh.
+Then he said he would finish tying the meat on, and go up and set the
+trap over again. He tied it on carefully, and set out to get ready for
+bears; but, when he tried to lift that gate, it wouldn't lift. It was
+made heavy purposely; and it was caught in the notch below, just exactly
+right, for the man that made that trap knew how. There was nothing about
+it to laugh at, and the hunter sat down and thought it over: so did the
+dog, looking at him through the cracks of the logs, and whimpering. It
+doesn't take a good dog long to understand when things are going badly."
+
+"He could have chopped his way out," said Port.
+
+"Yes," said the deacon, "but he had no axe, and a jack-knife is a poor
+tool to work with on seasoned timber. He tried it for a while; but it
+seemed as if he might whittle away for a week, or till he starved to
+death, before he could make a hole to get out by. He couldn't dig under,
+for limestone rock is hard digging. He worked a little at the roof, but
+that had been weighted with heavy stones, so that a bear could not have
+stirred a log of it. On the whole, it was a pretty tight place to be in;
+and it was dinner-time, and he was tremendously hungry. He had not a
+mouthful to eat or drink, and he knew his friends would not be uneasy
+about him before night, and not much even then. He was uneasy already,
+and so was the dog. The poor fellow came and pawed at the logs, and
+whined and whined; then he went back, and stood and barked like mad at
+the whole concern."
+
+"What a pity he didn't have an axe to chop himself out!" said Pen. "Then
+he wouldn't have staid there and starved to death."
+
+"He didn't do that exactly," said the deacon. "He sat down and thought
+about it, and studied that gate, until by and by an idea came to him. It
+was the middle of the afternoon before it came, but it was a good one.
+There were splinters of wood around the floor of the trap, and he had
+whittled a heap of shavings from the log he had worked on. He gathered
+them all, and began to crowd them into the chinks of the logs, away up
+in both corners of the gate, just under the roller that it swung on.
+Soon as he'd got them well packed in, he took out his match-box, and set
+them on fire. There isn't any trouble about getting dry wood to burn;
+and it was plain enough, that, if the ends of that roller were burned
+away, the gate would have to go down."
+
+Everybody around that fireplace felt sure about the burning qualities of
+seasoned wood, for they all had to pull away a little, and the story
+went on.
+
+"The fire kindled well on both corners. The fact was, it kindled a
+little too well, and it spread, and the smoke began to come back into
+the trap. Just before the hunter took out his match-box, he had looked
+around for his dog, and the fellow wasn't anywhere to be seen. There was
+time now to wonder what had become of him, but no amount of whistling
+brought him. Then the smoke grew too thick to whistle in, and the hunter
+lay down to get some fresher air at the bottom of the gate. The fire
+spread to the logs of the roof, and began to climb down the gate, and
+the trap became the hottest kind of a place. It took a long time for all
+that; but there was plenty of excitement in watching it, and in
+wondering whether or not he was going to roast himself to death instead
+of getting out. It grew hotter and hotter, until it could hardly be
+endured, and the smoke was stifling. At last the hunter sprang up, and
+gave a shove at the gate with all his might. If he had done it before,
+it might have let him out sooner. The gate went over upon the ground
+with a crash, and one jump carried the man out of the trap. He had left
+his rifle outside, leaning against a tree; and there it was yet, but
+there was not a sign of the dog.
+
+"He had left a big piece of deer-meat out there too; and his next
+thought was that he had plenty of fire to cook by, and that he wanted
+some supper as soon as he had been to the lake for a long drink of
+water. That water tasted good, now, I tell you, and so did the broiled
+meat afterwards; for the sun was only an hour high, and he had had an
+early breakfast that morning. He sat and cooked and ate, and felt
+better; and all the while the fire was finishing up the bear-trap, roof
+and all. He did his cooking on the gate; and, if he had not been able to
+get out when he did, the gate and roof would have cooked him."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Pen. "And he wasn't hurt a mite?"
+
+"No," said her father; "and just as he finished eating, and rose to pick
+up his rifle and start for the camp, there came a yelp, yelp, yelp
+through the woods, and there was his dog got back again. He hadn't come
+alone either; for right along behind him, travelling good and fast, were
+the three other hunters. The dog had been to the camp for them, and made
+them understand that his master was in trouble."
+
+"Splendid!" exclaimed Susie.
+
+"And when they saw the smoke of that fire, they all shouted and ran,
+till the dog gave a howl and a jump, and began to dance around the man
+he belonged to. He told his friends the whole story, and there was the
+fire to prove the truth of it; and each of them had killed a deer that
+day."
+
+"And how did you ever come to know just exactly how it all happened,"
+said Mrs. Stebbins, "so't you can tell it right along, 'most as if you'd
+been there?"
+
+"Well," said the deacon, "I suppose it's because I was the man that got
+caught in the trap; and the other three were Alvin Lucas, and Levi
+Stebbins, and Sarah's brother, Marvin Trowbridge, that's living now at
+Ticonderoga."
+
+"I'd heard the story before," said aunt Sarah, "and I remember seeing
+that dog when he was so old he was gray."
+
+"I guess he didn't get turned out of the house when he was old," said
+Port enthusiastically; "but why didn't you fix the trap, and set it
+again?"
+
+"That's the very thing we did; and we caught three bears in it, and one
+wildcat, before the snow came. Only we always took care to bait the hook
+before we set the trap; and nobody else had to set it on fire to get out
+of it."
+
+"Vosh," said his mother, "as soon as I've finished this apple, it'll be
+time for you and me to be getting ready to go home."
+
+"That's all," said the deacon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE NEW CHESSMEN.
+
+
+Porter Hudson did not feel like going to the woods the following
+morning. He had a pretty clear idea that they were empty, that the bears
+were asleep in their trees, that the wolves had mostly been killed, that
+the deer had run away, and that the cougars and wildcats had gone after
+them. He was quite willing to go to the village with Susie, when she
+told him she must go and see if she could find some tidy-yarn, and some
+more colored wool for the last few inches of the fringe for the fur of
+the Mink-lake trophy.
+
+"There's three stores," said aunt Judith, "and you'll be sure to find
+what you want at one of 'em. I can remember when old Mr. McGinniss kept
+the only store in Benton, and it did seem sometimes as if he never had
+nothing in it that you wanted to buy. It was always something else that
+he'd picked up at a bargain, and was asking two prices for, and it
+didn't make him rich neither."
+
+The walking in the road was good enough now, and from the very outskirts
+of the village the paths were all that could be asked for; but Port
+looked at them several times with remarks about Broadway.
+
+"If we were there now," he said, "we'd find all the flagging clear and
+clean of snow."
+
+"I almost wish I could be there for an hour or so," replied Susie.
+"There'd be a better chance of finding just what I want than there is
+here."
+
+The stores of Benton Village, however improved they were since aunt
+Judith was a girl, bore no resemblance whatever to those of the great
+city. There was a cheese on the counter over which Susie first asked for
+colored wool; and the young man she spoke to took down a large
+pasteboard box of crewel and other stuff, and politely carried it to the
+front window. He set it down on a pile of home-made sausages, and lifted
+a bag of flour out of her way, so that she could make a search. She
+found one skein that would do, and only one, and she bought it.
+
+"Now, Port, we will try the next. I've made a beginning."
+
+"That's more than I thought you would do," said he. "It's a mixed-up
+sort of place."
+
+So was store No. 2, but it had a long showcase for that description of
+goods, and for fishing-tackle and candies, and for a lot of stuff that
+looked as if it might have been intended for Christmas presents to the
+heathen.
+
+"It must have been some accident," said Susie almost as soon as she
+looked into that collection. "Here are the very things. We needn't go
+any farther."
+
+The merchant, who was smiling across the showcase at her, knew that she
+was "that young lady from the city that's visiting with Deacon Farnham's
+folks, and she can skate like a bird."
+
+He had never seen a bird skate, but he knew she was pretty, and he was
+sincerely proud of the fact that she found the right wool in his
+establishment. He was doing it up satisfactorily, when Port pointed at a
+box in the showcase, and asked,--
+
+"What's that, Mr. Rosenstein?"
+
+"Dot is chessmen. I show you."
+
+The box was lifted out in a twinkling, and pulled open.
+
+"I thought as much," said Port.
+
+They had evidently been on hand a long time, and had a forlorn and
+forsaken look. The white king was in two pieces, and so was one of the
+black horse-men; but Mr. Rosenstein said encouragingly,--
+
+"I zell dose chessmen for two shilling. Dey cost me four. You joost dake
+a leetle glue"--
+
+"Guess I can," said Port. "I'll buy 'em.--That's what I've been thinking
+of, Susie. Vosh can beat me at checkers, but he never played a game of
+chess in all his life. I'll show him something."
+
+Mr. Rosenstein was again very much pleased, for that box had been a bad
+speculation; and Port and Susie were bowed out of the store a great
+deal.
+
+There was not much to see in the village after that, but they strolled
+around for a little while. There were many people in from the
+surrounding country; and the jingle of sleigh-bells, and the continual
+coming and going of teams, made things lively.
+
+One large double sleigh, with extravagant goose-necks, pulled up almost
+in front of them, and a lady's voice called to Susie,--
+
+"Miss Hudson!"
+
+"Mrs. King! Good-morning. I've been doing some shopping."
+
+"Hope you succeeded better than I can do. Glad I've met you. There are
+your invitations, and your aunts' and uncle's; and if you'll be kind
+enough to send over Mrs. Stebbins's to her"--
+
+"I'll attend to that with pleasure," said Port, reaching out his hand
+for the white envelopes her own was offering.
+
+"And you must all come," said Mrs. King. "I'm going to have my house
+full. You will not disappoint me? Most of 'em will be young folks, but
+I'll have a few grown-up people on my own account."
+
+Susie promised faithfully, and Mrs. King drove on.
+
+"I'd like it first-rate," said Port, as he read his own invitation to
+the party. "We must go, Susie. It'll be fun."
+
+"Of course I'll go. Don't you think she has a very pleasant face?"
+
+He spoke strongly of Mrs. King's face, and they turned to go home. The
+fact that a young-people's party was getting ready to be announced at
+Squire King's was a secret pretty well known and carefully kept by all
+Benton; but everybody was glad to get an invitation, just the same.
+Twenty-three people, or perhaps twenty-four, remarked that they were
+very glad Squire King's house was so large, or there wouldn't be room in
+it to walk around after the folks got there. That was not all; for some
+of the Benton people found out, for the first time, that they were no
+longer considered "young people," and some of them felt as if Mrs. King
+had made a mistake in her reckoning. Mrs. Bunce, the doctor's wife,
+asked her where she drew the line; and she said,--
+
+"I don't exactly know, but if they've got gray hair, or their children
+go to school"--
+
+"That'll do," said Mrs. Bunce. "It hits me in both places. My Sam and
+his sisters'll be there, and I'll come after them. I hope you'll have a
+good time."
+
+There was some stir at the Farnham and Stebbins homesteads over those
+invitations. Both houses had been swept by Mrs. King's list in order to
+make sure of Susie and her brother, and it came as both a triumph and a
+trial to Mrs. Stebbins and Vosh.
+
+"They wear white silk neckties to parties," said she to him, "and I'll
+see that you hev one. They say it'll be the largest young-folks' party
+there ever was in Benton Valley."
+
+Some of the young folk expecting to go were very large, truly, but not
+all of them; for Penelope had a special invitation. That was old Squire
+King's work; for he knew Pen, and he declared that he wouldn't miss
+hearing what she had to say about the company, and things in general.
+
+That had been a busy day for Mrs. Stebbins, but her cake had turned out
+splendidly.
+
+"They're all coming over after tea, Lavawjer," she said to him, "and we
+must see to it that they have a good time. If you and Porter Hudson play
+checkers, you needn't mind a-letting of him beat you for once. He hasn't
+won a game on you yet."
+
+That was a fact; but there was something in store for Vosh that evening.
+He had every thing around the house attended to in prime good season;
+and his fireplace wore as bright a glow, for its size, as did Deacon
+Farnham's own. The weather called for that sort of thing; but everybody
+was now so accustomed and hardened to it, that there was less difficulty
+in understanding how the Russians can make out to be happy after their
+frosts begin to come.
+
+The entire Farnham family, Ponto and all, turned out in a procession
+soon after supper, and they made a noisy walk of it to their neighbor's
+gate.
+
+"There they come!" exclaimed Mrs. Stebbins; "and they're all talking at
+once, and it sounds as if they were in good sperrets, and we must keep
+'em a-going, and you mustn't talk too much yourself, and give 'em a fair
+chance, and"--
+
+The door flew open at that moment, and Pen's voice shouted,--
+
+"They're all a-coming, Mrs. Stebbins!--O Ponto! I never ought to have
+let you get in.--Vosh, turn him out before he has time to shake
+himself."
+
+It was too late for that, and Mrs. Stebbins would not have had a dog of
+the Farnham family turned out of her house at any time. Ponto was made
+at home by everybody but the cat; and even she showed very plainly that
+she knew who he was, even if she could not call him by name.
+
+"Here we are," said aunt Judith. "Did your cake come up? Hope it didn't
+fall."
+
+"Fall! No. It's just the lightest kind. Now, do get your things off, all
+of ye, and sit down. I'm to your house often enough, and I'm right glad
+to hev the whole of you in mine at once, and not scattering along."
+
+The room looked all the cosier for not being large; and, as soon as
+everybody had found a chair, Vosh was justified in saying to Port and
+Corry,--
+
+"Now, if this isn't first-rate, I'd like to know what is."
+
+Port's reply was,--
+
+"I got me a set of chessmen down in the village to-day, and I brought
+them over with me. It's worth all the checkers."
+
+Everybody seemed disposed to take an interest in that matter. The
+chessmen were turned out of their box, and showed signs of recent
+discipline. They had a bright and much-rubbed look. A little glue had
+remounted the knight, and set up the broken king; and when Corry
+remarked, "Didn't he get 'em cheap?" he expressed the general opinion.
+
+Vosh looked at them eagerly, and began to set them in their places. He
+had never played a game of chess; but he had watched the playing of
+several, and that was something to a good checker-player. It was not all
+new ground. From the moment he had heard about Port's purchase, by way
+of Corry, his mind had busied itself with his memories of the games he
+had watched; and he was at this hour crammed full of enthusiasm for the
+royal game.
+
+"Vosh," said Port, "suppose Susie and I play a game, and you look on and
+learn the moves."
+
+"No," said Susie: "you and Vosh play, and I'll be his adviser. I can
+play as well as you can."
+
+"Better too, if I make blunders in the opening."
+
+"Lavawjer," remarked his mother, "that's what you'd better do; and I
+don't suppose you can learn much in one evening, but you can make a
+start at it. They say it's an awful hard thing to get into, and there
+was a man over in Scoville's Corners that went crazy just a-studying
+over it."
+
+The chessmen were in place by that time, and so were the players; and
+Susie began to explain to Vosh the different powers of the pieces. He
+listened politely, but it seemed to him as if he already began to see
+into the matter. He was only too confident of what he saw, for a
+trifling neglect by him of Susie's advice enabled her brother to
+announce what players call "the scholar's mate" in a very few moves.
+
+"I told you so, Lavawjer," said his mother. "She knew jest what she was
+about, and you didn't." But there was no danger that her son would ever
+again be defeated by so simple a combination. The second game, with
+Susie's help, was more protracted; and then it was aunt Judith's keen
+eyes that detected the state of mind Vosh had arrived at.
+
+"Susie," she said, "let him alone this time. He's got a-going now. Don't
+say one word to him, and let's see how he'll work it out."
+
+"I won't speak, Vosh," said Susie. "Go right ahead now.--It won't be
+long, Port, before he'll catch up with you."
+
+Vosh was not a conceited young fellow, but he had a fair degree of
+self-confidence. He was not afraid of any reasonable undertaking at any
+time, but he had a queer experience coming to him just now. He found his
+imagination running away ahead, and placing those men on the board in
+new positions, and then understanding what would be the consequences of
+those arrangements. It was the power to do that very thing which had
+made him so good a checker-player; but he had never used it so vividly
+as now, and it almost startled him. All the brains in the world are not
+made upon the same pattern, and not many boys with good heads on their
+shoulders know what is in them.
+
+The older people were having a good time in their own way, but every now
+and then they turned to watch that third game of chess. Susie was in a
+fever several times, and came very near breaking in with advice, as her
+pupil seemed running into dangers. Each time she checked herself; and
+each time Vosh discovered the snags ahead of him, and avoided them. Port
+himself was getting more deeply interested than he had expected, and
+called up all he had ever learned. He was not a bad player for so young
+a one, and he had worked out problems, and studied printed games. He
+remembered one of the latter now, that seemed to fit his present case
+very well, and he tried to make it serve as a trap for Vosh Stebbins. It
+seemed a success at first, but it was just like Joshua Farnham's
+bear-trap exactly: the fellow that was caught in it destroyed it
+altogether. There was a way out of the proposed defeat which had not
+been seen by the newspaper problem-maker, and Vosh found it.
+
+That was the end of the game; and, in a few moves more, Port was himself
+in a tangle from which he could not escape. He was beaten. He was
+tremendously exercised by the laugh that went around the room, and by
+Susie's patting him on the head and advising him to wake up. He had not
+dreamed of any such result, and called for another trial. That game he
+managed to win, and one more; but beyond that neither he nor any other
+but a really good player was likely to go with Vosh Stebbins.
+
+"I declare, Sarah!" exclaimed the deacon at last: "we've staid too late.
+We must go home at once."
+
+Mrs. Stebbins protested that it was early; but the game of chess was
+over, and go they did. Every slice of all that remarkable cake had been
+eaten, and all declared that they had had an uncommonly pleasant
+evening. Pen improved it by remarking,--
+
+"Port's had a pretty hard time, but he'll get over it."
+
+After the company were gone, and the house was quiet, and Vosh could go
+to bed, it seemed to him as if he should never get to sleep. It was not
+exactly the fact that chess-problems were troubling his brains: it was
+more the yet greater fact that he had discovered brains in his head that
+he had not known of. With that also came the idea that he must find some
+better use for them than any kind of game could give him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+WINTER FLOWERS AND THE PARTY.
+
+
+Squire King was one of the most liberal of men, and he had something to
+be liberal with. He had gradually gone more and more into the spirit of
+the young folks' party matter, and had even astonished his wife by the
+things he did and proposed.
+
+To have had actual dancing would have offended some of the best people
+in the village; but every other kind of amusement that was to be
+tolerated he provided for, and he almost doubled the allowance of
+ice-cream and confectionery. He had no idea, nor had even his wife, what
+an amount of work and of contriving they had provided for their
+neighbors. Every store in Benton Village, and some over in Cobbleville,
+did a better business from the hour in which Mrs. King's invitations
+were delivered.
+
+The family at the Farnham homestead seemed to concentrate their interest
+upon the kind of appearance Susie Hudson was to make. Even Pen remarked
+to her,--
+
+"They all know me, and they won't care so much how I look; but you're
+from the city, and every one of 'em'll look at you as soon as you come
+in."
+
+Susie had brought a good enough wardrobe with her; and aunt Judith
+herself declared it extravagant, but at the same time selected the best
+things in it for use at Mrs. King's party.
+
+"I shall have no trouble at all," said Susie. "There needn't be any
+thing added to that dress."
+
+"No," said Pen, "it's mine that's got to be added to." But there was one
+lady in the neighborhood who was of a different opinion.
+
+The very morning of the party, Mrs. Stebbins said to her son,--
+
+"I don't keer if you do miss a day's schoolin'. You jest hitch up the
+colt after breakfast."
+
+"Going somewhere?"
+
+"I'll tell you after we're a-going. It won't be any short drive, now.
+I'm going to hev my own notions for once. She's the nicest gal I know
+of."
+
+"Do you mean Susie Hudson?"
+
+"I'll show you what I mean, and if I don't open somebody's eyes!"
+
+She evidently had some plot or other on her mind, and she grew almost
+red in the face over it at the breakfast-table. She finished putting
+away the dishes while Vosh was out getting ready the colt and cutter,
+but she did not seem disposed to tell even herself precisely what her
+plans were. It was not until she and her deeply interested driver were
+actually driving into Benton that she came out with it.
+
+"Vosh," she said, "take right down the main street, and out the
+Cobbleville road. We're going way to cousin Jasper's."
+
+"That's three miles beyond. Well, it isn't much of a drive in such
+sleighing as this is. The colt's feeling prime. But what's it for?"
+
+"We're going all the way to cousin Jasper Harding's; and, if the frost
+hasn't clean killed out his hot-house, I'm going to hev somethin' for
+Susie Hudson that the rest on 'em can't get a hold of. The last time I
+seen him he said his plants was doing first-rate, and he'd put in
+steam-pipe enough to save 'em if the frost was a-splitting the rocks. He
+hasn't any use for 'em on earth, except that he had lettuce and radishes
+for his Christmas dinner."
+
+There was steady work for the sorrel colt after that, and the bells
+jingled the merriest kind of tune right through Cobbleville without
+stopping. When "cousin Jasper's" was reached, it was nothing but a
+long-built, story-and-a-half white house, with no pretension whatever.
+There were young fruit-trees around it in all directions, and uncommonly
+extensive trellises for vines; and at one end the glass roof of a
+hot-house barely lifted itself above the snow-banks. One man, at least,
+in that region, had materially added to his other resources for winter
+enjoyment.
+
+"He says it doesn't cost him any thing to speak of," said Mrs. Stebbins
+to Vosh. "He's got some fixings rigged to the big stove in the parlor,
+to send the steam around the hot-house, and the fire doesn't go out in
+that stove all winter long. I'd kind o' like to try it some day myself.
+It's the getting started that costs money."
+
+"And then," said Vosh, "there's the knowing how to do it."
+
+He thought so again after he got into that bit of a winter garden, and
+looked around him. Cousin Jasper Harding was an under-sized man, and his
+wife was a short woman of twice his weight. They could stand erect where
+Vosh had to stoop a little; but he could stand up in the middle, and see
+what they pointed out to him. Both were glad to see him and his mother,
+and to have them stay to dinner; but, for some reason or other, Mrs.
+Stebbins was slow about opening her errand. Vosh wondered a little, but
+he waited and listened. It was at the dinner-table that she began to
+tell about the young folks' party to be at Mrs. King's that evening.
+From that she went over to Deacon Farnham's, and told about Susie
+Hudson, and how pretty she was, and about her skating, and all the nice
+evenings at the deacon's, and at last somewhat suddenly inquired,--
+
+"Didn't you use to think a good deal of Joshaway Farnham and his wife,
+and Judith, and"--
+
+"Best friends I ever had in my life."
+
+"I was thinking, Jasper. City girls are used to having a sprig of
+something to wear in their dresses to a party. Now, I know it would
+please Joshaway and Sarah and Judith if you'd send a bit of something
+green,--jest a leaf or so, not to rob any of your plants. There ain't
+many of 'em, and cutting 'em might hurt 'em; and where a man hasn't but
+a little"--
+
+"Something green? Guess so. There's more in that hot-house than you
+think there is, Angeline."
+
+"Well, maybe there is. It looks too nice to take out any thing of what
+few plants you've got."
+
+"You just finish your pie, and come along. I'll show you something you
+think I can't do. I'd like to do a favor for any girl of that family.
+Tell her I knowed her mother 'fore she was born. I'll go right in now;
+be ready by the time you get there.--Betsey, you keep Angeline company,
+and I'll show her something."
+
+He certainly astonished both her and Vosh. As she afterwards explained
+to the latter, no money could have made him part with any of his
+hot-house treasures as a direct sale, nor would he have given them for
+the asking. She had to get them the way she did; but there they were.
+
+"That's for her throat-latch, Angeline; and she can put that on her
+waistband,--little fellows, you know. She can carry that in her hand;
+and, if she wants to send her photygraph to old Jasper Harding and his
+wife, she can. I'll hang it up in the hot-house."
+
+Mrs. Stebbins had a great deal to say about those flowers and green
+leaves, and the skill with which they had been cultivated and now were
+put together, and she added,--
+
+"Now, Betsey, Vosh and I must go. Jasper's bokay and the buds'll be worn
+by the nicest and prettiest gal at Mrs. King's party, and I wish you two
+were going to be there to see."
+
+In a few minutes more the colt was brought from his dinner in the barn,
+Mrs. Stebbins was in the cutter guarding her prizes, the liberal florist
+was thanked again, and then the bells made lively music homeward.
+
+Very complete was the astonishment on all the faces in the Farnham
+sitting-room when Mrs. Stebbins walked in, and announced the results of
+her morning's undertaking. The sorrel colt had trotted twenty miles and
+more for the sake of Susie Hudson; but it was Vosh's mother who got
+kissed for it, and that was probably sound justice. She also received an
+invitation to go and come in Deacon Farnham's sleigh, and so the sorrel
+colt did save an evening job in cold weather.
+
+Vosh was particularly glad of that invitation. He was a young man of a
+good deal of courage, but it seemed to him that he could march into Mrs.
+King's front parlor more easily with a crowd than with only his mother
+or alone. Corry was not troubled in that way, nor Penelope; and Porter
+Hudson was only too well aware that he was from the city, and had been
+to parties before. He had no doubt whatever that he would know how to do
+the right things in the right place, but that was just where Vosh
+Stebbins found his courage called for. He made a mental chessboard of
+Mrs. King's premises, and the people who were to be in them, and found
+that he could not place the pieces to suit himself. He was the worst
+piece in the whole lot whenever he arranged one of those society
+problems. It was a game he had never played, and he was only half sure
+he could win at it. He was confident of being as well dressed as was
+necessary, except that he wondered whether or not any one would wear
+gloves. His mother settled that for him, and Mr. Rosenstein could have
+told him that only three young men in Benton had bought any. These had
+run the risk of it, meaning to put them on if it should be necessary.
+One had purchased white kids, and another a black pair, while the third
+had heard that bright yellow was the correct thing. The pair he selected
+were very bright and very yellow.
+
+Susie Hudson's dress did not trouble aunt Judith's mind after she saw it
+on, and she remarked of it,--
+
+"Now, Sarah, I'm glad there isn't any thing showy about it. It's just
+the best thing. She isn't looking as if she was putting on. It'll be all
+the prettier when the flowers are there, and nobody else'll have any."
+
+It was simple, tasteful, of very good material, and there was no
+question as to the good effect of the flowers. Susie was all but sorry
+that she was to be alone in that particular; and so, as soon as she got
+there, was every other girl in the room.
+
+The deacon's hired man lived at some distance down the road, but he came
+up to look out for the team, and was sent first to the Stebbins house.
+
+Vosh and his mother were ready, and he was thinking of his new white
+silk necktie when he came to the door with her. The man in the sleigh
+could not hear him think, and did not know what a burden a necktie can
+be; but he did hear Mrs. Stebbins remark,--
+
+"Now, Lavawjer, the one thing you're to remember is, that you mustn't
+talk too much. Let other folks do the talking, and, if you keep your
+eyes about ye, you may learn something."
+
+He had already begun not to talk too much, for hardly a word escaped him
+till they got to the Farnham gate.
+
+"I'll go in and see if they're ready," he said, and was preparing to get
+out.
+
+"I guess I'll go in too," added his mother. "I'd like to see how they're
+all a-looking."
+
+At that moment, however, the front-door swung open, and a procession
+marched out, headed by Pen, and closed, as was the door behind it, by
+her father.
+
+"We're all fixed, Vosh," said Pen. "My back hair's in two braids, and
+Susie's got a bracelet with a gold bug on it, and Port's got on his
+summer shoes, and aunt Judith"--
+
+Just there her account of the condition of things was cut off by the
+general confusion of getting into the sleigh, but Pen made up for it
+afterwards. Vosh again showed a strong tendency to take his mother's
+advice, and the drive to the village was by no means a long one. They
+were not any too early, and had to wait for three other sleigh-loads to
+get out, before theirs could be drawn in front of the pathway cut
+through the drifts to the sidewalk. Only one of Mrs. King's guests was
+very late that evening, and he was a young man who was learning to play
+the flute, and had heard that fashionable people never went anywhere
+till after nine o'clock. Besides, it took him an hour or so to decide
+not to carry his flute with him.
+
+It helped Vosh a great deal, that they all had to go to the
+dressing-rooms first, and unwrap themselves. After that, it all came
+easier than he had expected, for Squire King and his wife had a hearty,
+kindly way of welcoming people. Perhaps it helped him somewhat, that
+they had no opportunity to say too much to him just then, and he could
+go right on following his mother's advice.
+
+There was a stir in the rooms, that Susie did not at all understand,
+when she and her brother passed on to mingle with the rest of the young
+people. Some of them had seen her before, and some had not, and all of
+them were taking a deeper interest in her dress and appearance than she
+had any idea of. It was as well for her comfort, that she was ignorant
+of it, and that she did not hear eleven different young ladies assure
+each other, "She must have sent away to the city for those flowers."
+
+Her uncle and aunts were exceedingly proud of her, and so was Pen. In
+fact, the latter informed several persons whom she knew, "She's my
+cousin Susie, and she's the prettiest girl there is here; but I don't
+believe I shall look much like her when I grow up."
+
+Squire King asked her why not, when she told him, and was at once
+informed,--
+
+"Susie's never been freckled, and mine won't ever come off. They go away
+round to the back of my neck. Most all the girls here have got 'em, but
+they don't amount to any thing."
+
+"Freckles, or girls either," laughed the squire. "But, Pen, does your
+cousin play the piano?"
+
+"Of course she does, only we haven't any, and so she's learned how to
+spin. She can crochet, but I showed her how to heel a stocking, and so
+did aunt Judith."
+
+"I'm sure she can," remarked Mrs. King. "I'll go and ask her myself."
+
+That was not until the party had been in full operation for some time;
+and quite a number were wondering what it was best to do next, when Mrs.
+King led Susie to the piano. Several of the local musicians had already
+done their duty by it, and Susie had consented without a thought of
+hesitation. She heard a remark as she passed one young lady who had
+barely missed the outer line of Mrs. King's list of invitations:--
+
+"The flowers are real, and she's pretty enough, but she's too young to
+play well. They're paying her too much attention, I think."
+
+If there was one thing that Susie loved better than another, it was
+music, and her teachers had done their duty by her. The moment her
+fingers touched the keys, they felt entirely at home, and sent back word
+to her that they would play any thing she could remember. Then they went
+right on, and convinced every pair of ears within hearing that they were
+skilfully correct about it.
+
+"I declare!" exclaimed Vosh Stebbins to the little knot around him, "she
+can play the piano better than she can skate, and that's saying a good
+deal."
+
+The young folks in two of the farther rooms were playing forfeits, and
+missed the music, but the promenaders all stood still for a few minutes
+and listened. It was just like the flowers. Nobody else had brought any
+thing quite so nice, and there was danger that Susie would be unpopular.
+As it was, she had no sooner risen from the piano than Squire King
+announced that supper was ready. Vosh had not known that it was so near,
+and was compelled to see Adonijah Bunce offer Susie his arm, and lead
+her into the refreshment-room. He felt that he had made the first real
+blunder of the evening, but he was wrong about it. Adonijah was so
+agitated over his success, that he spilled some scalding hot coffee down
+his left leg, and trod on Susie's toes in consequence. He made her
+exclaim, "Oh, mercy!" and he made as much blood go into his own face as
+it could possibly hold at the moment when he said "Golly!" and bit his
+tongue for it.
+
+There was promenading during all the supper-time, and some music,
+because the dining-room would not hold them all at once; but, as fast as
+the young people finished and came out, they set more vigorously at work
+to enjoy themselves. It was right there that the young people of Benton
+Valley began to forgive Susie Hudson for her skating and her flowers and
+her music, and for being a city girl. She went into every thing with
+such heartiness, that even Adonijah Bunce began to feel as happy as his
+left leg would let him. Still he was the only young fellow there who
+could say that he had poured hot coffee on himself, if that could be
+called distinction. Vosh Stebbins had seen him do it, and had been more
+at ease ever since.
+
+Squire King and his wife were in tremendous good spirits about their
+party, and they had a right to be. Aunt Judith herself told them it was
+the nicest gathering of young folks that there had ever been in Benton;
+and Pen enjoyed it so much, that at last she leaned up against Mrs.
+Keyser on the sitting-room lounge, and went fast asleep.
+
+It was all over at last, and the guests went home. Sleigh-load after
+sleigh-load was packed, and went jingling away. The nearby residents
+marched off as they had come, except that some young men had more to
+take care of, and some young ladies had other young gentlemen than their
+own brothers. Pen went to sleep again in the sleigh, and her father
+lifted her out and carried her into the house; and the moment she waked
+up she remarked,--
+
+"He gave me a whole paper of candy, Susie, and it filled my muff so I
+couldn't get my hands in."
+
+That had been Squire King's work, and her mother responded,--
+
+"You're going to bed now, and so is Susie. No candy till morning."
+
+At that very moment Mrs. Stebbins was saying to Vosh,--
+
+"I'm glad we're home again, but we've had a good time. She did look well
+in them flowers, and she just can play the piano; and you got along
+first-rate, Lavawjer; and I'm glad you let Nijah Bunce see her in to
+supper, and wasn't round in the way at no time." She had more to say;
+but it was a very late bed-time, and she had to put off saying it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE SNOW-FORT.
+
+
+There was a large amount of conversation performed in Benton Valley the
+day following the party at Squire King's. It began before breakfast. In
+some sleeping-rooms it began before people were out of bed. It went on
+all over the village; and the whole affair was discussed at the
+drug-store, and in the blacksmith-shop, and at the tavern. It is safe to
+say that every thing that could be said was said; and the unanimous
+verdict was, that the party had been a success. So had Susie Hudson
+been, and she was not omitted from a single description of the company.
+As for Adonijah Bunce, he obtained some liniment of his mother without
+telling her just where he had been standing when he spilt the coffee.
+Susie knew where he stepped next; but she was not very lame, and felt
+kindly towards Adonijah.
+
+Vosh came over pretty early in the forenoon to see Port and Corry upon a
+matter of some importance.
+
+"Snow-fort!" exclaimed Porter Hudson a little dignifiedly. "Don't you
+think we're a little too old for that?"
+
+"Not if it's finished up in the way they began it," replied Vosh. "They
+went at it after school, and I guess they must have finished it this
+morning. We'll have the biggest game of draw you ever got into, and we
+can keep it up all day."
+
+"I'm in for it," said Corry; but Port had really never seen any snow
+citadels, nor had he been in any game of draw. He remembered reading
+that Benedict Arnold mounted his cannon on a snow-fort, the better to
+pepper Quebec, but he had a dim and small opinion of such matters. Still
+it was a promise of fun, and he went right along. The weather had been
+growing milder for two days, and that Saturday morning the sun had
+actually risen with yellow in his face. Deacon Farnham had predicted a
+change in the weather yet to come, and said something very deep about
+sap in trees, and of how he must watch it. Port could not imagine any
+method of watching the movements of sap in trees, or any reason for
+caring how it moved. He was now thinking with increasing interest about
+snowballs and their uses, for Vosh explained to him the proposed game of
+"draw" as they went down the hill.
+
+"Three to one is fair odds," he said; "and, if a fellow gets hit, he
+changes sides. I've seen a fort drawn so full, they had half of 'em to
+sit down; and the last fellow out had no chance to pick up a snowball,
+for dodging what they gave him. It's just so if there's only one left in
+the fort. He can hardly show his head without having one of his ears
+filled. The snow'll pack first-rate just now. It'll stick together, but
+it won't make too hard a ball. Wet snow'll pack into a wad that stings,
+and it'll do damage too, sometimes."
+
+Port remembered something about that from even his small experience in
+the city. He had paid for a pane of glass once.
+
+The boys of Benton Village had snowballed a great deal that winter. They
+had grown to be pretty expert marksmen, and their dodging qualities had
+improved. They had even made snow breastworks two or three times; but
+their ambition in that direction had recently been stimulated by a
+picture in one of the illustrated papers. All hands had agreed that the
+right kind of a fort had never yet been built upon that green, and that
+it was time to have one. Snow was plentiful, and so were shovels; and,
+so long as it was play, there were boys enough to do the work, hard as
+it might be. They made it square, and the walls were nearly two feet
+thick. They were so high that the shorter boys complained that only
+their heads came above it.
+
+It made them all the safer in a game of draw, and they could throw
+nearly as well. The fort was not finished on Friday evening, because so
+many of the leading boys were to be at Mrs. King's party; but, by the
+time Vosh and his two neighbors got there Saturday forenoon, they were
+beginning to draw for sides.
+
+"There's just twenty-four of us, Vosh," said Adonijah Bunce. "That's six
+for the fort, and eighteen for the field, to begin on. Draw your cut
+now, and see where you belong."
+
+"There," said Vosh as he pulled a straw from the hand extended to him:
+"where does it send me?"
+
+"Into the fort. I'm outside.--Now, Corry, you and Port."
+
+They drew, and discovered that they also were outsiders, under Capt.
+Bunce; while Vosh was to command the fort as long as the sharp practice
+should let him stay there.
+
+"It begins to look as if it were going to amount to something," said
+Port to himself, when it was explained to him that none of his crowd
+could go in beyond a certain line about forty feet from the snowy wall,
+nor retreat beyond another line twice as distant.
+
+Vosh and his garrison of five privates were inside the fort in a
+twinkling, and there were piles of snowballs there ready for use. So
+there were along the lines of the attacking forces; and the shout of
+"All ready!" had hardly been uttered, before the missiles began to fly.
+
+Porter Hudson was determined to do himself credit, and at once dashed up
+to the line, throwing as he went.
+
+"Pick him," said Vosh to his men, and the next instant all their heads
+came in sight at once. Capt. Bunce's force was well enough disciplined,
+and their volley at those heads was prompt; but six balls came straight
+for Porter Hudson. He dodged two, and one missed him widely; but another
+lodged in his neck, another came spat against his waistband, and the
+sixth took off his hat.
+
+"Called in!" shouted Vosh, and Port belonged to the garrison. So, in a
+few moments more, did three other of Capt. Bunce's marksmen; but he had
+played draw before, and was beginning to wake up. He divided his men,
+scattering them all around the fort, and Port's next experience came to
+him in that way. A random ball came over the opposite wall, and landed
+in the middle of his back. He was again in the field, but his place was
+taken by the young man who was learning to play the flute. Standing
+still a moment to warm his hands, and whistle, a pellet thrown by Corry
+Farnham had broken on his nose, and spoiled the music. The fun grew fast
+and furious, and the fort was steadily gaining, until Vosh Stebbins made
+a blunder. He saw somebody walking along on the sidewalk beyond the
+green, but did not notice who they were till Corry remarked,--
+
+"Halloo! Aunt Judith and Susie. Guess they're going to see Mrs. King.
+Morning call, eh?"
+
+The attention of Capt. Bunce was drawn in the same direction by a youth
+who said to him,--
+
+"There's that young lady from New York. See her?"
+
+Adonijah turned to do so, and stood still long enough for Vosh Stebbins
+to make a perfect and undodging mark of him. The ball was a hard one,
+and it struck precisely upon the liniment, the spot where the coffee had
+been. Nijah jumped, but he was a drawn man; and so, alas for the
+fortunes of that fort! was Capt. Stebbins. He too stood still too long;
+and he was bare-headed now, looking around for his cap, and rubbing his
+red right ear, where a globe of well-packed snow had landed forcibly.
+
+Susie and her aunt stood still for some minutes, watching the game,
+without the least idea that they had any thing to do with the exchange
+of leaders. They were indeed on their way to Mrs. King's; but aunt
+Judith had other errands, or she would have let that ceremony wait.
+
+Vosh had been studying war all that morning, and he was hardly among the
+outsiders before he tried a new plan of attack.
+
+"Now, boys," he shouted, "you do as I tell you. Take the corners,--half
+of us against the corner this way, and half against the opposite corner;
+and they'll have to kind o' bunch up to throw back, and you're bound to
+hit somebody. Make a lot of balls, and get good and ready, and we'll
+empty that fort."
+
+It worked very much in that way. The defenders of the fort were drawn
+carelessly towards the corners, under a raking fire. The pellets flew
+over among them thick and fast; and in less than three minutes
+Coriolanus Farnham stood alone, the entire garrison of the frosty
+fortress. He stood in a bending posture, against the inner face of a
+wall, while all around him flew the snowballs that were searching for
+him. He was a forlorn hope, but he meant to stick it out. He even rose
+suddenly to return the volleys with a solitary shot. He threw, but so
+did twenty-three assailants from various directions; and Nijah Bunce had
+waited, with a knowledge of his where-abouts.
+
+"Called out!" shouted Vosh. "What are you rubbing for, Corry?"
+
+"Got hit all over."
+
+"Game's up," said Nijah. "Now, boys, we'll choose over again."
+
+"Not till I've had a rest," said Corry; and Port remarked,--
+
+"I'll hold on. My arm's too lame to throw another ball."
+
+So was every other arm among them, by the time they had emptied that
+fort again; but it was voted the best snowballing of the season.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE SUGAR-BUSH AND THE BEAR.
+
+
+The winter days went swiftly on, with constant repetitions of chess and
+fireside comfort in evenings, and snowballing, skating, sleigh-rides,
+and other fun whenever the circumstances permitted. There were frequent
+and long letters from the South, and other and shorter letters from the
+city. A pretty steady comparison of climates could be made from time to
+time, and there was no small interest in that. Susie and Port became as
+well known in Benton Village as if they had been residents, and at least
+a dozen of the young ladies they knew had learned to skate. Old Miss
+Turner, the dressmaker, tried it; but she told her friends that she tore
+her dress and spoiled her bonnet for nothing, and she wouldn't bump the
+back of her head in that way any more.
+
+"Aunt Sarah!" suddenly exclaimed Susie one afternoon, when she had just
+finished reading a letter from Florida, "mother says she is as well as
+ever, and that, now spring is coming"--
+
+"Spring! Why, it's hardly beyond the end of February yet. The winter'll
+hold on till April, and maybe till nigh the end of it."
+
+"Well, away down there they've had real warm weather."
+
+"Now, Susie, you sit right down and write to her that the snow's three
+feet deep on a level, and she mustn't dream of running the risk of her
+health in coming North till May."
+
+"Spring'll come earlier in the city than it will up here, aunt Sarah.
+You can't think how I want to see her."
+
+Port was listening, and he drew a long breath; but he said nothing, and
+looked very hard out of the window at the endless reaches of snow. They
+were there, but the long cold "snap" was unmistakably over. It was after
+supper, that very evening, that Deacon Farnham remarked to his wife,--
+
+"Sarah, the sun's been pretty warm on the trees, and the sap'll be
+running. I must be getting ready. I mean to have the biggest kind of a
+sugaring this year."
+
+"I'm glad of it, Joshua. It'll be something for the young folks too. I'm
+half afraid Susie's beginning to be homesick."
+
+"Nonsense," said aunt Judith; "but of course she wants to see her
+mother. She and Port are doin' something or other all the while. It's
+been just one jump with 'em, and they've had a good time. They read a
+good deal, too; and Port shot two more rabbits only yesterday, and
+carried 'em over to Mrs. Stebbins."
+
+The city cousins had indeed had a good time; but they did not tell
+anybody how glad they were to see the sun climbing higher, and to feel
+sure that spring was nearer.
+
+The increasing sun-power was settling and packing the drifts; and the
+bitter nights were all that witnessed, for about a week, to the
+remaining strength of the winter. The sap began to run, as the deacon
+said it would, and he was fully ready for it. His sugar harvest was to
+be gathered among the maple-trees on the south-lying slope, near the
+spot where he had done most of his chopping. There were trees there of
+the right sort, in great plenty,--great towering old fellows that could
+well afford to lose a little sap.
+
+"Judith," said Mrs. Farnham, while her husband was at the barn loading
+his wood-sleigh with the things he would need at the sugar-bush, "we
+must have the sewing society meet at our house right in sugaring-time."
+
+"It'll be the very thing to do, and I'm glad you thought of it. Only
+it'll take a good deal of sugar to sweeten some of 'em."
+
+There was more to be said; but Port and Susie had no share in the
+discussion, for they hurried out to the sleigh, and were quickly on
+their way to the woods. They had already learned that a hundred tall
+maples, more or less, with holes bored into their sides, and with wooden
+"spiles" driven into the holes, were thereby transformed into a "bush."
+
+The deacon made the boys leave their guns at home, as he had work for
+them to do; but Vosh joined them when they passed his house, and he
+carried his double-barrel on his shoulder. He was laughed at a little,
+but he said there was no telling when he might find a use for it.
+
+It was a bright and sunny day, but there had been no real thaw as yet.
+The crust had settled with the snow, and was still firm enough for the
+workers to walk from tree to tree.
+
+The first business was to tap as many as the deacon thought he could
+attend to; and the boys had enough to do in carrying from the sleigh the
+wooden troughs, and placing them where they would catch the steady drip,
+drip, from the sap-spiles.
+
+"They'll fill pretty fast," said the deacon. "We've got some evening
+collecting before us, or I'm mistaken. We must have some kettles up as
+soon as we can."
+
+He and Vosh and the hired man went right at it, and the deacon declared
+that he would have two more hands from the village the next day. Susie
+and Pen went with them, and stood watching the process.
+
+"It's easy enough," said Pen, as she saw them struggling with one of the
+great iron kettles.
+
+Two strong forked stakes were driven down in convenient places, at about
+eight feet apart. A stout pole was laid across each pair of stakes,
+resting in the forks. A kettle was swung upon each cross-pole in due
+season, but only three had been brought that morning. Then all was ready
+for building a fire under the kettle, and beginning to make sugar.
+
+"Won't the snow melt under it?" asked Susie. "Won't it put out the
+fire?"
+
+"You'll see," said Vosh. "Of course the snow melts on top, and sinks,
+and we keep pitching on bark and stuff, and the ashes are there. The
+water runs off through the snow, and all the stuff gets packed hard,
+and'll bear as much fire as you can build on it. It makes a cake, and
+freezes nights, and those cakes'll be the last things around here that
+melt in spring."
+
+He was aching to get a bucket of sap into that first kettle, and a fire
+under it, so he could show her how it worked; but the other kettles had
+to be set up first. It was well that there should be enough of them to
+take the sap as it came, so that nobody need be tempted to throw cold
+sap into boiling sirup at the wrong time. A barrel was brought up
+afterwards, to hold any surplus that a kettle was not ready for.
+
+While the workers at the sugar-bush were pushing forward their
+preparations, Susie and Port were learning a great deal about
+maple-sugar processes. They could not help remembering all they knew
+about other kinds of sugar. At the same time there was much activity at
+the farmhouse. Aunt Judith put on her things, as soon as she could spare
+the time for it, and went over to consult with Mrs. Stebbins. Then they
+both came back to see Mrs. Farnham; and all three wrapped up, and made
+the quickest kind of a walk to the village. They made several short
+calls separately, and, when they came together again, Mrs. Stebbins
+announced the result triumphantly,--
+
+"We've set the ball a-rollin'. Elder Evans'll give it out in meeting
+this evening. All the rest of 'em'll send word, and he'll give it out
+again on Sunday. If we don't have your house full next Tuesday, I'm all
+out in my count."
+
+Sugar-making in a large "bush" is not a business to be finished up in a
+day or two. The weather grew better and better for it, and Deacon
+Farnham's extra "hands" were kept at it most industriously. Tuesday
+came, and Mrs. Stebbins was not at all out in her count. The house began
+to look lively even before noon. Squire King and his wife came just
+after dinner, and their sleigh could not have held one more passenger.
+It went right back for some more. It was curious, too, considering that
+everybody knew all about sugaring. Old or young, hardly any of them were
+contented until they had paid a visit to the "bush," and drunk some sap.
+Some of the younger people seemed very much inclined to stay there.
+
+"There won't be any great amount of sewing done for the poor heathen,"
+remarked one good old lady, with a lump of maple-sugar in one hand, and
+a kruller in the other. "What's more, all their appetites'll be spiled,
+and they won't enjoy eatin' any thing."
+
+Some afterwards seemed really to have suffered that injury, but not the
+majority, by any means. The later arrivals, especially, came hungry. All
+the latter part of that afternoon seemed to be one pretty steady-going
+dinner or supper. The ladies of the society poured right out into the
+kitchen to help aunt Judith, till she begged that no more should come at
+once than could stand around the stove.
+
+It was well that there should be a sugar-bush, or some sort of
+excitement, to keep a part of that gathering out of doors. The house was
+full enough at all times; and before sunset the knots of merry people
+scattered around among the maple-trees and kettles discovered why Vosh
+Stebbins had persisted in carrying his gun out there every day since the
+work began.
+
+Vosh had dreamed of such a thing, and had been almost half afraid of it;
+but he had hoped in his heart that it might come, and the peaceful
+course of events had disappointed him. He was getting ready to start for
+the house that day, gun and all, when he heard somebody scream, away up
+near the farthest clump of sugar-trees,--
+
+"Bear, bear, bear! There's a bear drinking sap!"
+
+Ever so many voices were raised at once to announce to everybody the
+arrival of that ferocious wild animal, recently waked from his winter's
+nap. They told of the dreadful thing he was doing, and suggested other
+dreadful things that he might do. He might eat up the society.
+
+"They generally come at night," said the deacon calmly, "but they are
+very apt to visit a sugar-bush. They're fond of sap."
+
+"Where's Susie? Where's Pen?" exclaimed Vosh. Then he remembered that
+they and a whole party of village girls were up there near those very
+trees, and he ran as if his life depended on it.
+
+"Steady, Vosh. Not so fast. I'm a-coming."
+
+There was the deacon panting behind him, axe in hand; and behind him was
+the hired man with his axe, and away behind him were three or four
+sturdy farmers following with no better weapons than sled-stakes.
+
+Port and Corry were with the girls, and it had been a wonder how quickly
+the last girl and boy to be seen had gotten behind a tree. They were all
+now peering out for a look at the bear, and Penelope declared of him,--
+
+"He's the largest bear in the world. He's awful!"
+
+Not all of them were where they could see him, and he was making no
+effort at all to see them, but his offence was that he had come. No
+doubt but he had been a little scared at first, when the girls began to
+scream; but he was hungry and thirsty, and he was fond of sap, and he
+took courage. There were all those troughs ready for him, and he could
+not think of going away without a good drink.
+
+Besides, the bear could not see that any of those young ladies seemed
+disposed to come any nearer, and he had not been introduced to one of
+them. So he overcame any bashfulness, and put his nose into another
+sap-trough, and it was empty in a twinkling. He served another in the
+same way, and was going ahead quite contentedly, nearer and nearer the
+girls that were afraid to run. At least half a dozen were braver, and
+ran remarkably well towards the kettles. Port and Corry, behind their
+trees, were longing for all sorts of weapons, when they saw something
+well worth seeing.
+
+The bear stood still suddenly; for a dark-eyed, plucky-looking boy, with
+something in his hands, stood right in the way.
+
+"What are you loaded with, Vosh?" shouted the deacon. "Nothing but
+buckshot? It's risky."
+
+"Buckshot, and two slugs in each barrel."
+
+"That's better. He's turned a little. Take him in the shoulder."
+
+"Bang, bang!" was the reply made by the gun. It was close work, and not
+many of the leaden missiles wandered from their broad black target.
+
+The bear was mortally wounded, but he instantly gathered his remaining
+strength for a charge. The furiously angry growl he gave sent a thrill
+and chill through all the bones of the scattered spectators.
+
+Right past Vosh at that moment sprang the deacon; and he met the bear
+halfway, like the brave old borderer that he was. He was a master-hand
+with an axe, and its keen edge fell with a thud squarely between the
+eyes of the ferocious animal. It sank in as if the bear's head had been
+the side of a hickory, and there was no need of any second blow.
+
+The bear was dead; and all the sugar makers and eaters could cluster
+around and make remarks upon him, and praise Vosh Stebbins and the
+deacon.
+
+"Pen!" exclaimed Susie, "what will his mother say of him now?"
+
+"Why, they'll skin him, and it'll make the beautifullest kind of a
+buffalo-robe."
+
+Pen was thinking of the bear only; and Vosh had at once reloaded and
+shouldered his gun, and walked away. He was ready for another bear, but
+felt pretty sure that none would come. Port and Corry gave up going to
+the house for guns and coming back again, and all the young ladies
+seemed to think it must be near supper-time. They carried the news to
+Mrs. Stebbins, and it was all but provoking that she should take it very
+much as a matter of course. If any bear came to be killed, it was as
+natural as life that her boy should kill him. He was a young fellow from
+whom uncommon things were to be commonly expected.
+
+After the adventure with the bear, the sewing society was a greater
+success than before. It went right on until late into the evening, but
+the success of it was not in the sewing that was done. The only heathen
+for whom much was accomplished was probably the bear himself.
+
+Susie Hudson said to her brother at last, "I don't care, Port, it beats
+a city party all to pieces. There's ever so much more real enjoyment. I
+want to live in the country."
+
+"Oh, well, I like it in winter. It's well enough. You've been out here
+in summer too."
+
+"It's twice as good then."
+
+"No, Susie, it can't be. It must be all hard work in summer. But think
+of the fun we've had!"
+
+She did; and late in the evening Vosh Stebbins stepped up to her, and
+whispered,--
+
+"May I see you home? The cutter's waiting at the door. All the rest are
+getting ready to start."
+
+"I've got to say good-by to them all, I suppose."
+
+"Go round and say it now. I don't want to sleigh-ride anybody else.
+They've all got company."
+
+That was the reason why, a little afterwards, Vosh Stebbins's mother
+could not find him. He and Susie were jingling over the snow behind the
+sorrel colt, and it was a long way home before they returned to the
+house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE FLOOD AND THE END.
+
+
+It was well for all who were fond of sleighing, to make the best use of
+their time. A great many people had had enough, and were even eager to
+see the snow depart. There was a great deal of it to go, and the weather
+took an unexpected part in the matter. The sun came out with a power
+that had in it something peculiar, and made all human beings feel
+drowsy, heavy, listless, and disposed to take boneset-tea. The older
+they were, the more black and bitter was the boneset they called for;
+and aunt Judith manufactured some uncommonly good root-beer to go with
+it. So far as the young people were concerned, the root-beer went much
+more rapidly than the boneset.
+
+Then arrived two whole days of warm and heavy rain; and, when the sun
+came out again, he had an altered landscape to look down upon. All the
+hillsides were streaming with torrents of water, and every hollow was a
+pond. The roads were channels of temporary rivulets, and the river in
+the valley had swollen until its fetters were breaking. The ice in the
+mill-pond cracked and lifted until the water broke out over the dam.
+That relieved the pressure for a few hours, until the huge cakes of ice
+got in a hurry, and began to climb upon each others' shoulders. They
+rapidly built up a dam of their own, right on top of the old one, and
+the water sent back up stream for more ice. As fast as the new supplies
+came down, they were heaped up, right and left and centre; and no
+engineer could have done the work better, so far as increasing the size
+of the mill-pond was concerned. It grew tremendously, and the sun toiled
+at the snow-banks on the hillsides, all along the banks of that river
+away up into the mountains, to send down more snow-water for the big
+spread in Benton Valley.
+
+"Sarah," said Deacon Farnham at about the middle of the second forenoon,
+"if this thing keeps on, it'll drown out the village."
+
+"Has the water got there yet?" she asked. "Is it rising?"
+
+"Rising! Guess it is. I'll hitch up the team after dinner, and we'll go
+and take a look at it."
+
+When Pen and Corry came home at noon, they reported that school was
+dismissed for the day; and Pen explained it,--
+
+"She said the Flood was coming again, but I don't believe it is."
+
+"Not Noah's Flood," said her father; "but enough might come to carry
+away the school-house. I can't say what they're going to do about it."
+
+The story Vosh told at home brought Mrs. Stebbins over after dinner, and
+there was a full sleigh-load driven down to see the sights.
+
+Susie and Port were to have one more experience of winter life in the
+country, and it was one they would not have missed for any thing. The
+mill-pond was away below the village, and there was another up towards
+Cobbleville that was said to be nearly as badly off. As the water had
+risen, it had set back and back, until now the low-lying lands were a
+great lake with houses and barns sticking up from it. Deacon Farnham
+drove on down towards the village, and all the tongues in the sleigh
+grew more and more silent. Aunt Judith had already told all there was to
+tell about the great flood when she was a girl, and when they had to
+live without flour or meal. The story sounded much more real now, for
+the first man they met said to them,--
+
+"If the ice goes on packing up there at the dam, the mill and all will
+break away before midnight."
+
+"Are they trying to do any thing to loosen the pack?" asked Vosh.
+
+"They can't get at it to pick at it, and it's wuth any man's life to
+try. The water's in the main street now."
+
+"What if the upper dam should give way?" asked the deacon.
+
+"Well, if the ice there and the dam should give way all at once, and
+come down in a heap, there wouldn't be much left of Benton."
+
+They drove on down the road to the right, towards what had been the
+lower level of the coasting-hill, where the sleds darted out upon the
+pond. They could see the whole thing now, and the long ridge of ice with
+the flood surging and rising against it, and filling up every lower
+place with fresh material. The water was still pouring over the pack at
+the upper dam, the deacon said, or no more ice and snow would be coming
+down.
+
+"Mr. Farnham!" suddenly exclaimed Vosh Stebbins, "I wish I had money
+enough to pay for a keg of blasting-powder."
+
+"What for, Vosh?"
+
+"Don't you see? You can get to the second floor of the mill, right
+across those logs. If a keg of powder could be shoved out on the pack,
+and left there with a slow-match burning, I could get back before it
+went off."
+
+"I'll pay for the powder," said the deacon as he turned his team towards
+the village, and Mrs. Stebbins gasped,--
+
+"O Vosh! Lavawjer!"
+
+She sat still, and looked a little white for a moment, and then the
+color came to her face, and there was a sort of flash in her eyes as she
+said slowly and steadily,--
+
+"Just you try it on. Your father would have done it any day. Levi
+Stebbins was a soldier, and he never flinched any thing in all his
+life."
+
+"Joshaway," said aunt Judith with a bit of a tremor in her voice, "I
+want to pay for that powder myself. He can buy two kegs if he needs
+'em."
+
+The water was nearly a foot deep in front of Rosenstein's store when the
+sleigh came splashing along. The whole village was boiling with
+excitement, in spite of the fact that the flood was all of ice-water.
+
+"Powder? Going to blow up dot ice?" said Mr. Rosenstein doubtfully; but
+he hurried to bring out a keg of it, and a long line of fuze.
+
+"Now, Vosh. No time to lose. You mustn't run any needless risk, but I
+believe you can do it. I'll go as far as into the mill with you."
+
+"Joshua," said Mrs. Farnham, "will he need help? His weight's a good
+deal lighter than yours."
+
+"We'll see about it when we get there. That pack has got to be broken:
+so has the one at the upper dam."
+
+They were once more on the hill-road, and nearing the point of danger.
+Great piles of saw-logs, ready for the saw-mill, had accumulated on the
+slope between the mill and what was now the shore; and already quite a
+number of adventurers had crossed upon them to the building itself, and
+back again. Not a soul had cared to remain more than a minute, and none
+had ventured beyond.
+
+"Go, Joshua," said Mrs. Farnham. "He'll need advice, if he doesn't need
+any thing else."
+
+Corry took the reins, and his father and Vosh stepped out. There were
+thirty or forty men and boys standing around and watching the flood, and
+all were eager to know what was coming; but the answers given them had a
+short, gruff sound, as if uttered by somebody too much in earnest to
+talk.
+
+"Right along, Vosh," said the deacon. "The logs are firm enough."
+
+So they were, and it was easy to climb through an open window into the
+second story of the mill. Through all the lower floor the water was
+rushing and gurgling, and the building shook all over as if it were
+chilly.
+
+An opposite window was reached, and there before them was the ice-pack.
+Only at one point, beyond the centre, was there any water going over it;
+and it seemed only too strong and solid.
+
+"As far out as you can, Vosh," said the deacon. "Put it into a hole of
+some kind, if you can."
+
+Without a word of comment or reply, the brave boy crept through the
+window, and let himself down upon the ice, and the keg was handed him.
+
+"Use the whole length of the fuze," said the deacon. "You'll have time
+enough."
+
+"Mr. Farnham," said Vosh, "you go back right away, now."
+
+"I don't know but what it's my duty. Do yours quick, Vosh."
+
+He was every way disposed to obey that suggestion. The roar of the
+waters, the strange sensation of the presence of great peril, and even
+the idea that so many people were looking at him, made the situation one
+from which he was in a hurry to get away. Nearly in the middle of the
+pack he came to a deep crevice between the heaps of glimmering ice, and
+into it he lowered his little barrel of explosive meal. He had made it
+all ready, fixing the end of the fuze in its proper place, and now he
+led the line back over comparatively dry ice.
+
+"Nothing to put it out," he muttered; "and they said it was water-proof,
+anyhow."
+
+A stream of people, on foot and in sleighs, had followed that
+undertaking from the moment when the news of it began to buzz around the
+village, and a full hundred had now gathered on the slope opposite the
+mill. They saw Vosh Stebbins scratch a match on his coat-sleeve, and
+stoop down; and then they saw him turn, and walk swiftly away towards
+the mill.
+
+"It's all right, deacon!" he shouted. "She's a-burning!"
+
+"Come on, Vosh. Hurry up. I just couldn't go ashore till you got back."
+
+Vosh replied with a ringing laugh that had a world of excitement in it.
+He followed the deacon back through the mill, and across the perilous
+bridge of floating logs; and there on the shore stood Susie Hudson, and
+her aunts, and his mother, but Penelope was the only one who said any
+thing.
+
+"Vosh," she asked, "did you lose all your powder and your string?"
+
+"Guess I have," replied he; and then it was Adonijah Bunce who
+remarked,--
+
+"Didn't quite do it, did ye?"
+
+"Hold on a minute," said Mr. Farnham. "It was a long fuze."
+
+It seemed as if everybody held their breaths till it must hurt them;
+but, just when they could not do it any longer, a great sheet of smoke
+and flame shot up from the middle of the ice-pack. It was followed by a
+dull, heavy report, and by flying fragments of ice.
+
+Had it accomplished any thing?--that was the question in all minds; but
+it was only a moment before there was another crash, and another. The
+barrier had been blown away to such a thinness that the pressure from
+above was sufficient to break it through. The flood rushed forward into
+the widening channel with a surge and a plunge, and away went the river
+again, roaring down its half-deserted bed below. More of the cakes of
+ice to the right and left, now no longer wedged and self-supporting,
+were swiftly torn away, and the gap so opened could not be closed again.
+
+"I just knew he'd do it," said Mrs. Stebbins proudly, as the round of
+cheers died away after the explosion and crash. "His father would ha'
+done it."
+
+There were plenty to congratulate Vosh; but he and the rest got into the
+sleigh again, and drove back towards the village. Even before they
+reached it, the waters were manifestly receding a little, and, when they
+again stopped in front of Mr. Rosenstein's store, it was pretty well
+understood that the first peril was over.
+
+"Now for the pack at the upper dam!" shouted the deacon. "It's safe to
+make a hole in it, now our pack is broken.--I want to pay for that
+powder, Mr. Rosenstein. I was in such a hurry, I forgot it."
+
+"Dot's joost vot I did," replied the merchant. "You bays for no powder
+for dot boy. He safe de village. I deals not in pork."
+
+There was a cheer for Mr. Rosenstein; and a dozen men set off towards
+the upper dam with more powder, and a new idea.
+
+"We have done enough for one day," said Deacon Farnham after he had seen
+that squad set out. "We can afford to go home.--Mrs. Stebbins, you and
+Vosh can take dinner with us, and Susie and Port can read their
+letters."
+
+All were entirely willing, and the team headed for home as if they were
+conscious of having done something for the public good. The village
+post-office was kept in Mr. Rosenstein's store, and that was one reason
+why the letters had been received in such an hour of excitement. They
+were not read until after the arrival at the farmhouse, for every one in
+that sleigh was looking back into the valley to see whether or not the
+flood was visibly subsiding. Even after they reached the house, Vosh
+said he felt as if he were about to hear the explosion at the upper dam.
+He did not hear it; but the ice there was blown open, nevertheless, and
+the river had a fair chance to carry all its surplus down stream, and
+melt it up instead of making dams of it.
+
+Porter Hudson was the first to tear open an envelope.
+
+"Susie!" he shouted almost instantly, "mother's got home."
+
+Her fingers were busy with her own letter for a moment, and then she
+turned to Mrs. Farnham.
+
+"Aunt Sarah!"
+
+"O Susie! I know what you mean. They want you at home."
+
+"Yes," said aunt Judith, "I suppose we've got to say good-by to 'em
+pretty soon."
+
+"And there's no winter at all in the city," said Port. "No snow to be
+seen, and some of the buds are beginning to show."
+
+The letters had a powerful effect upon all the gathering around that
+dinner-table; and Pen thought she had settled the difficulty, or nearly
+so, when she broke a long silence with,--
+
+"They might just as well all come up here and live. There's room for 'em
+all, and it's ever so much better than the city is."
+
+There was no immediate haste called for, but winter was over. Word came
+from the village in the morning, that the flood was going down fast, and
+the mill was entirely safe, and that everybody was talking about the
+feat performed by Vosh Stebbins. It looked as if Mr. Farnham's part of
+it was a little neglected, and Pen remarked with some jealousy,--
+
+"Father got the powder, and all Vosh did was to touch it off."
+
+Everybody seemed to feel blue that evening, for some reason; and the
+thaw carried away almost all the snow there was left, with hardly a
+remark being made about it. The fire in the sitting-room burned low, and
+no fresh logs were heaped upon it. Susie sat in front of it, and
+remembered a summer day when she had seen nothing there but polished
+andirons, and branches of fennel.
+
+"Port," said Corry almost mournfully, "I do hope you've had a good time.
+We all want you to come again."
+
+"Good time! Tell you what, Corry, I won't come up here unless you'll
+come and visit us in the city. I've been thinking over lots of things I
+could show you and Pen. I've had the biggest kind of a time."
+
+"You must come up some time in summer," said aunt Judith. "The country
+is beautiful then. Better fishing, hunting--all sorts of fun."
+
+"I guess there isn't any thing better than winter fun," said Susie
+thoughtfully. "I do like the country at any time of the year."
+
+Vosh Stebbins and his mother also sat in front of their sitting-room
+fireplace, and were uncommonly still and sober.
+
+"Mother," said he at last, "I've had the greatest winter I ever did
+have. There's been any amount of fun in it, but seems to me there's been
+a good deal more."
+
+"Yes," said his mother, "they've been right good company, and I'm real
+sorry to hev 'em go; but it's time they went, and her mother's health's
+come back to her. She's one of the best of women, I haven't the least
+doubt in the world. I never seen a girl I took to more'n I hev to Susie
+Hudson, and I hope she and Port'll come up here again; and I've been
+a-findin' out how much it'll cost to hev you go to college, and you've
+got to jest study up and go."
+
+"Mother!" That was all he could say; for his mind had been playing chess
+with that problem since he did not know exactly when, and he had not
+dared to speak of it.
+
+One week later the Farnham and Stebbins farmhouses felt smaller and
+lonelier, and Penelope teased for a pen and ink, remarking,--
+
+"If I write to Susie right away, it may get there almost as soon as she
+does, and she won't have to wait for it to come."
+
+The rest of the family and their neighbors had their hands full of
+spring work, and had no time to think much of their recent visitors; but
+their visitors were thinking of them. A lady and gentleman in a city
+home were listening to prolonged and full accounts of their children's
+winter in the country, and every now and then the gentleman exclaimed,--
+
+"Vosh Stebbins again!" At the end of it all, he said to his wife,--
+
+"My dear, did you know that youngsters of that kind were scarce? I must
+keep an eye on him. Susie says he's to have an education. Got a good
+beginning for one now, I should say. If he should go straight, there's
+no telling what he might do. He can graduate from college into my
+office, if he wishes to. I knew his father, and his mother's as good as
+gold."
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Port. "Then Vosh can kill his bears in the city. How'd
+you like that, Susie? I'd like it."
+
+Susie only turned to her mother, and asked,--
+
+"What do you think, mother?"
+
+"I? Oh, we will have plenty of time to think it over. We can go up there
+and visit, and we can have them down here."
+
+Nevertheless Vosh did go to college, and he did pass from it to Mr.
+Hudson's law-office; and it is true, to this day, that nobody can tell
+what he will do, he is doing so much and so well.
+
+
+
+
+SCRIBNER'S BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.
+
+_Scribner's List of Juvenile Books._
+
+_The great legend of the Nibelungen told to boys and girls._
+
+
+THE STORY OF SIEGFRIED.
+
+BY JAMES BALDWIN
+
+With a series of superb illustrations by HOWARD PYLE.
+
+Mr. Baldwin has at last given "The Story of Siegfried" in the way in
+which it most appeals to the boy-reader,--simply and strongly told, with
+all its fire and action, yet without losing any of that strange charm of
+the myth, and that heroic pathos, which every previous attempt at a
+version, even for adult readers, has failed to catch.
+
+
+THE STORY OF ROLAND.
+
+BY JAMES BALDWIN
+
+With a series of illustrations by R. B. BIRCH.
+
+This volume is intended as a companion to "The Story of Siegfried." As
+Siegfried was an adaptation of Northern myths and romances to the wants
+and the understanding of young readers, so is this story a similar
+adaptation of the middle-age romances relating to Charlemagne and his
+paladins. As Siegfried was the greatest of the heroes of the North, so,
+too, was Roland the most famous among the knights of the Middle Ages.
+
+"We congratulate the boys of the land upon the appearance of this book.
+We commend it to parents who are selecting literature for their
+children, assured, as we are, that it will convince them that books may
+be found which will engage the attention, and stimulate the imagination,
+of the young, without dissipating the mind, or blunting the moral
+sensibilities."--_Philadelphia Messenger._
+
+
+THE FIRST REALLY PRACTICAL BOY'S BOOK.
+
+THE AMERICAN BOY'S HANDY BOOK;
+
+Or, WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT.
+
+BY DANIEL C. BEARD.
+
+With three hundred illustrations by the author. _One volume_
+
+_Mr. Beard's book is the first to tell the active, inventive, and
+practical American boy the things he really wants to know, the thousand
+things he wants to do, and the ten thousand ways in which he can do
+them, with the helps and ingenious contrivances which every boy can
+either procure or make._
+
+The author divides the book among the sports of the four seasons; and he
+has made an almost exhaustive collection of the cleverest modern
+devices, besides himself inventing an immense number of capital and
+practical ideas.
+
+
+THE BOY'S _Library of Legend and Chivalry_.
+
+EDITED BY SIDNEY LANIER, _And richly illustrated by FREDERICKS, BENSELL,
+and KAPPES._
+
+THE BOY'S KING ARTHUR
+
+THE BOY'S FROISSART
+
+KNIGHTLY LEGENDS OF WALES
+
+THE BOY'S PERCY
+
+"Amid all the strange and fanciful scenery of these stories, character
+and the ideals of character remain at the simplest and the purest. The
+romantic history transpires in the healthy atmosphere of the open air,
+on the green earth beneath the open sky.... The figures of Right, Truth,
+Justice, Honor, Purity, Courage, Reverence for Law, are always in the
+background; and the grand passion inspired by the book is for strength
+to do well and nobly in the world."--_The Independent._
+
+
+THE BOY'S MABINOGION.
+
+Being the earliest Welsh tales of King Arthur in the famous Red Book of
+Hergest. Edited for boys, with an Introduction by SIDNEY LANIER. With
+twelve full-page illustrations by Alfred Fredericks.
+
+
+THE BOY'S KING ARTHUR.
+
+Being Sir Thomas Mallory's History of King Arthur and his Knights of the
+Round Table. Edited for boys, with an Introduction by SIDNEY LANIER.
+With twelve full-page illustrations by Alfred Kappes.
+
+
+THE BOY'S FROISSART.
+
+Being Sir John Froissart's Chronicles of Adventure, Battle, and Custom
+in England, France, Spain, etc. Edited for boys, with an Introduction by
+SIDNEY LANIER. With twelve full-page illustrations by Alfred Kappes.
+
+
+THE BOY'S PERCY.
+
+With fifty text and full-page illustrations by E. B. BENSELL.
+
+
+Mr. Lanier's books, which made him the companion and friend of half the
+boys of the country, and showed his remarkable talent for guiding them
+into the best parts of this ideal world, fitly close by giving the best
+of the ballads in their purest and strongest form, from Bishop Percy's
+famous collection. With "The Boy's Froissart," "The Boy's King Arthur,"
+"The Mabinogion," and "The Boy's Percy," Mr. Lanier's readers have the
+full circle of heroes.
+
+
+
+
+FRANK R. STOCKTON'S POPULAR STORIES.
+
+
+THE STORY OF VITEAU.
+
+With sixteen full-page illustrations by R. B. BIRCH.
+
+
+In "The Story of Viteau," Mr. Stockton has opened a new vein, and one
+that he has shown all his well-known skill and ability in working. While
+describing the life and surroundings of Raymond, Louis, and Agnes at
+Viteau at the Castle of De Barran, or in the woods among the
+_Cotereaux_, he gives a picture of France in the age of chivalry, and
+tells, at the same time, a romantic and absorbing story of adventure and
+knightly daring. Mr. Birch's spirited illustrations add much to the
+attraction of the book.
+
+
+A JOLLY FELLOWSHIP.
+
+_Illustrated._
+
+"'A Jolly Fellowship,' by Mr. Frank Stockton, is a worthy successor to
+his 'Rudder Grange.' Although written for lads, it is full of delicious
+nonsense that will be enjoyed by men and women.... The less serious
+parts are described with a mock gravity that is the perfection of
+harmless burlesque, while all the nonsense has a vein of good sense
+running through it, so that really useful information is conveyed to the
+young and untravelled reader's mind."--_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin._
+
+
+THE FLOATING PRINCE, AND OTHER FAIRY TALES.
+
+With illustrations by BENSELL and others.
+
+"Stockton has the knack, perhaps genius would be a better word, of
+writing in the easiest of colloquial English, without descending to the
+plane of the vulgar or common-place. The very perfection of his work
+hinders the reader from perceiving at once how good of its kind it
+is.... With the added charm of a most delicate humor,--a real humor,
+mellow, tender, and informed by a singularly quaint and racy fancy,--his
+stories become irresistibly attractive."--_Philadelphia Times._
+
+
+
+
+NEW EDITIONS OF OLD FAVORITES.
+
+
+ROUNDABOUT RAMBLES IN LANDS OF FACT AND FICTION.
+
+TALES OUT OF SCHOOL.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM O. STODDARD'S CAPITAL STORIES FOR BOYS.
+
+
+DAB KINZER.
+
+A STORY OF A GROWING BOY.
+
+"The book is enlivened with a racy and genuine humor. It is, moreover,
+notably healthy in its tone, and in every way is just the thing for
+boys."--_Philadelphia North American._
+
+"It is full of fun, liveliness, and entertainment. Dab Kinzer will be
+voted a good fellow, whether at home, at school, or out
+fishing."--_Portland Press._
+
+
+THE QUARTET.
+
+A SEQUEL TO "DAB KINZER."
+
+
+"The boys who read 'Dab Kinzer' will be delighted with 'The Quartet.' It
+is the story of Dab's school and college life, and certainly equals the
+former story in interest. In a literary point of view, it ranks among
+the best of its kind. There are few writers of boys' books who present
+boy-life in the strong, sympathetic, manly way that Mr. Stoddard does.
+His good boys are genuine, fun-loving, careless, but royal-hearted. In
+the words of one of their admirers, 'They're a fine lot, take 'em all
+round.'"--_Boston Post._
+
+
+SALTILLO BOYS.
+
+Mr. Stoddard's stories for boys grow better and better every year. Good
+as were "Dab Kinzer" and the "Quartet," SALTILLO BOYS surpasses them in
+its narrative of bright, manly, and yet thoroughly boy-like life in an
+inland town, whose actual name and locality may be shrewdly guessed by
+those familiar with its characteristics. The incidents are thoroughly
+boyish, and yet quite free from frivolity. The drift of the book is
+wholly on the side of frank, intelligent, and self-reliant manliness;
+and it is impossible for any boy to read it without absorbing a love for
+nobility of character, and forming higher aspirations.
+
+
+AMONG THE LAKES.
+
+
+Mr. Stoddard's bright, sympathetic story, "Among the Lakes," is a
+fitting companion to his other books. It has the same flavor of happy,
+boyish country life, brimful of humor, and abounding with incident and
+the various adventures of healthy, well-conditioned boys turned loose in
+the country, with all the resources of woods and water, and their own
+unspoiled natures.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Winter Fun, by William O. Stoddard
+
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