the door-stone. She could
look at it from the open window with a handkerchief at her nose.

"Ain't it a stunner?" said Charley.

"It is a proper large one," said Grandma. "It makes me think of your
father, Amy, dear, when he was a boy. He was always fetching home some
sort of a creetur. La! how natural it does seem. I remember once he took
to killing black cats. He fetched home as many as twenty altogether, and
their skins, stretched out to dry on the side of the barn, stared me in
the face every time I went into the yard. How this creetur does carry a
body back, to be sure."

"This fellow wears a pretty jacket," said Charley. "I wish we knew the
easiest way of getting it off. Do you know, Grandma?"

"La, child, I never was no hand for such doings."

"What a question," said Amy. "Of course Grandma does not know."

"We had better commence operations, if we expect to get through before
school time," said Bertie. "That is, if Grandma has looked at him long
enough. Have you, Grandma?"

"Bless the child!" said Grandma, who had endured the creature simply to
please her darlings. "Never mind staying longer on my account. But drop
in as you go to school, and get your luncheon."

"Tarts?" queried Bertie.

But Grandma smiled and closed the window, to shut out, if possible, the
stifling odor of musk.

"I almost wish I had taken up with Jack's offer," Bertie said to
Charley, as they carried the musk-rat home.

"What was that?"

"He wanted to skin the fellow for me."

"I can boss that job," said Charley.

"And so can I?"

That was a part both understood, and it was the only part.

CHAPTER VIII

JACK PULLS OFF THE WARM JACKET.

Bertie sharpened his knife and prepared to commence operations, Charley,
Amy and Flora looking on.

"You begin on the inside of the hind leg," said Charley.

"Oh, I know where to begin and where to leave off; but the thing is to
do it neatly, without making a botch. Here goes."

Bertie flourished his knife and began to cut. He made a long slit on the
inside of one hind leg.

"Treat them both alike," said Charley.

Flora, who had been watching the operation, suddenly cried out:

"Take your arms down and go away. You are a bad boy. Charley Waters says
so; and I do."

Bertie turned quickly to see what, was the matter; and there stood Jack,
with folded arms, resting upon the fence. He tried to call Flora off;
but she flew at Jack with all the fury of a little terrier, her l