h the result of some
reflection. I can do as much here as anywhere. I hoped I could do
something for you, and I, poor unweaned baby and booby, can do better
for myself near you than elsewhere."

Not much was said. She was thoughtful, deep natured, tender, and
highly strung, though not demonstrative, and these qualities in him
were modified by the soft, sensuous, imaginative elements that came to
him--all that he inherited, except his complexion, from his father.

His mother gave him supper, and he sat and inquired about home events,
and gave her a pleasant account of their relatives in the lower part
of the State. He said nothing of the discovery he had made among
them--her own family relatives--that she had married beneath her,
and had never been forgiven; and he fancied that he discovered some
opening of old, old sorrows, dating back to her girlhood days, as
he talked of her relatives. The two younger brothers came rattling
in--George, a handsome, eager young threshing-machine, a bright,
broad-browed boy, and Edward, older, with drooping head and thoughtful
face, and with something of Bart's readiness at reply. George ran to
him--

"Oh, Bart, I am so glad! and there is so much--a flock of turkeys--and
a wolverine, and oh! so many pigeons and everything--more than you can
shoot in all the fall!"

"Well, captain, we will let them all live, I guess, unless that
wolverine comes around!"

"There is a real, true wolverine; several have seen him, and he
screeches, and yells, and climbs trees, and everything!"

"There _is_ something around," said Edward. "Theodore and Bill Johnson
heard him, over in the woods, not a week ago."

"Likely enough," replied Bart; "but wolverines don't climb. There
may be a panther. Now, Ed, what has been going on on the farm? Is the
haying done?"

"Yes; and the wheat is all in, and most all the oats. The corn is
splendid in the old elm lot, and then the Major has been chopping
down your old sugar camp, where we worked when you came home from old
Hewitt's."

"Oh, dear, that was the loveliest bit of woodland, in the bend of the
creek, in all the magnificent woods; well?"

"He has nearly finished the Jenks house," resumed Edward, "and is now
at Snow's, in Auburn. He said you would be home before now."

"What about his colts?"

"Oh, Arab runs about wild as ever, and he has Dolf with him."

"How many hands has he with him?"

"Four or five."

"Dr. Lyman asked about you," said George