out the chairs, and carry them ourselves."

"Not for the world, Judge, for I think it's best to make children
useful."

Accordingly Eliza Jane brought the chairs, and the mother retiring
with her, soon returned with the little girl, bearing in her hands
a tray containing the strawberries and cream. The Judge kissed the
child, and gave her a half dollar to buy a ribbon for her bonnet.

"I do declare Judge!" cried the mother, whose gratified looks
contradicted the language, "you'll spoil Eliza Jane."

"A child of yours cannot be spoiled, Mrs. Perkins," said the Judge,
"as long as she is under your eye. With your example before her, she
is sure to grow up a good and useful woman."

"Well, I try to do my duty by her," said Mrs. Perkins, "and I don't
mean it shall be any fault of mine, if she ain't."

It was nearly sunset by the time the gentlemen had finished, when the
Judge proposed to visit a piece of wood he was clearing at no great
distance from the house. Armstrong acquiesced, and they started off,
Mrs. Perkins saying, she should expect them to stop to tea.

Their route lay through some woods and in the direction of the
Wootuppocut, on whose banks the clearing was being made. As they
approached, they could hear, more and more distinctly, the measured
strokes of an axe, followed soon by the crash of a falling tree. Then,
as they came still nearer, a rustling could be distinguished among the
leaves and the sound of the cutting off of limbs. And now they heard
the bark of a dog, and a man's voice ordering him to stop his noise.

"Keep still, Tige!" said the voice. "What's the use of making such a
racket? I can't hear myself think. I say stop your noise! shut up!"

"It is Tom Gladding, whom Perkins hired to make the clearing, one
of the best wood-choppers in the country. It is wonderful with what
dexterity he wields an axe."

As the Judge uttered these words, the two gentlemen emerged from the
wood into the open space, denuded of its sylvan honors, by the labors
of Gladding.

The clearing (as it is technically termed), was perhaps a couple of
acres in extent, in the form of a circle, and surrounded on all sides
by trees, only a narrow strip of them, however, being left on the
margin of the river, glimpses of which were caught under the branches
and the thin undergrowth. A brook which came out of the wood, ran,
glistening in the beams of the setting sun, and singing on its way
across the opening to fall into t