of ice, gentlemen, by any manner
of means.

"After the fire had got along so far that the meeting-house was a gone
case, an alarm was given probably by the very fellows that set it, and a
hundred people were on the spot before the thing had done burning.

"Of course these circumstances put an end to the breaking up of the
family. Dave was sent for, and came home. Then, as soon as we saw that
the old man's brain was injured so that he wasn't likely to recover his
mind, the boys and I went to work and put that farm through a course of
improvement it would have done your eyes good to see. The children were
sent to school, and Mrs. Jedwort had all the money she wanted now to
clothe them, and to provide the house with comforts, without stealing
her own butter. Jedwort was a burden; but, in spite of him, that was
just about the happiest family, for the next four years, that ever lived
on this planet.

"Jedwort soon got his bodily health, but I don't think he knew one of
us again after his hurt. As near as I could get at his state of mind, he
thought he had been changed into some sort of animal. He seemed inclined
to take me for a master, and for four years he followed me around like a
dog. During that time he never spoke, but only whined and growled. When
I said, 'Lie down,' he'd lie down; and when I whistled he'd come.

"I used sometimes to make him work; and certain simple things he would
do very well, as long as I was by. One day I had a jag of hay to get in;
and, as the boys were away, I thought I'd have him load it. I pitched it
on to the wagon about where it ought to lie, and looked to him only to
pack it down. There turned out to be a bigger load than I had expected,
and the higher it got, the worse the shape of it, till finally, as I
was starting it toward the barn, off it rolled, and the old man with it,
head foremost.

"He struck a stone heap, and for a moment I thought he was killed. But
he jumped up and spoke for the first time. '_I'll blow it_,' says he,
finishing the sentence he had begun four years before, when he called
for the horn to be passed up to him.

"I couldn't have been much more astonished if one of the horses had
spoken. But I saw at once that there was an expression in Jedwort's face
that hadn't been there since his tumble in the belfry; and I knew that,
as his wits had been knocked out of him by one blow on the head, so
another blow had knocked 'em in again.

"'Where's Bob?' says he, looki