he wonderful new puppy in his arms Dan took a gloomy view
of the situation. "I 'm sick of being an example," he said. "I had to
be one at Aunt Bradford's all the time, for she told Mercy and Joseph
to watch how I behaved, and now here 's this crazy blackamoor mocking
everything I do! I guess Father 'll wish he had n't bought him."

The days that followed were trying ones for everybody. The Goodwife
was nearly distracted trying to house her family and do her work in
such crowded quarters. Zeb followed Dan like a nightmare, and the
Goodman delved early and late to catch up with the work which had
waited for his return. Among other duties there were berries to be
picked in the pasture and dried for winter use, and this task fell to
the children. It was work which Zeb thoroughly enjoyed, but alas, he
ate more than he brought home. On one occasion he ate green fruit
along with the ripe, and spent a noisy night afterward holding on to
his stomach and howling at each new pain. In vain the Goodwife tried
to cure him with a dose of hot pepper tea. Zeb took just enough to
burn his mouth and, finding the cure worse than the disease, roared
more industriously than ever. She was at her wit's end and finally
had to leave him to groan it out alone beside the fire. It was weeks
before he learned to understand the simplest sentences, and meanwhile
poor Dan had to go on being an example.

Finally one day the Goodman brought home a large saw from Boston, and
he and Dan showed Zeb how to use it. Then day after day Dan and Zeb
sawed together, making boards for the new house, while Nancy brought
her carding or knitting and sat on a stump near by with the puppy at
her feet or nosing about in the bushes. They had named the dog Nimrod,
"because," as Nancy said, "he is surely a mighty hunter before the
Lord, just like Nimrod in the Bible. He sniffs around after field mice
all the time, and if he only sees a cat he barks his head off and
tears after her like lightning!"

[Illustration]

* * * * *

[Illustration]

The summer passed quickly away, with few events to take them outside
the little kingdom of home in which they lived. Twice the Captain
stopped to see them when the Lucy Ann put in at Boston Harbor, and it
was from him they got such news as they had of the world without. By
October, Nimrod had grown to be quite a large dog and was already
useful with the sheep, and Zeb could understand a good deal of