the most--the pigs or our little
'Lisha?"

Elisha was the baby's name. They hadn't thought of such names as Carl
and Claude and Clarence in those days.

One fine moon-lit night, late in the fall, after the corn had been
husked and carried into the loft, and some of the big yellow pumpkins
had been cut into strips and hung on long poles near the kitchen ceiling
to dry, and others had been stored away for the cow's luncheons and the
Thanksgiving pies, and the potatoes were safe in the cellar, and the
onions hung in long strings above the mantel-shelf, this young farmer
covered up the glowing coals in the fire-place with ashes, so they
would keep bright and hot for the morning fire, and went to bed feeling
quite well prepared for winter, for he had that day "banked" the house
clear up to its queer little windows, and made the cow-shed and pig-pen
and hen-house very cozy with loads of hemlock and spruce boughs.

He was just dozing off to sleep, when all at once there sounded through
the still, frosty air a long and terrible squeal from the pig-pen.

The farmer did not wait for it to end, but bounced out of bed, tore away
the clumsy fastening of the door, and rushed out with a war-whoop that
could have been heard a mile away if there had been anybody to hear it.
As he rushed he caught up a corn stalk that happened to lie in his way.
A corn stalk was a foolish thing for him to pick up, but people seldom
stop to think twice in such moments. He was around by the pig-pen in no
time, and there he saw a great burly _something_ just lifting one of his
dear little pigs over the top of the pen. He rushed upon him, and struck
him over the head with the corn stalk. There was a joint in the corn
stalk nearly as hard as a crust of bread, and the _something_ seemed to
almost feel it through his thick fur, for he turned about and looked at
the farmer, as if saying,

"What do you want of _me_?"

And there he was--a great, black, full-grown bear!

"Drop him! drop him!" yelled the farmer; and he brought the corn stalk
down upon the bear's nose. The bear dropped the pig very quickly, but he
grabbed the man in place of it, and then commenced a grand wrestling
match. The farmer was a strong man, and he was "fighting for the right."
The bear was strong too, and being a little tired of wild honey and
beech-nuts, he had made up his mind to have a little spring pig for his
family's supper. As they pushed and pulled this way and that, the bea