for safe keeping. It would be well, Tom, to go down
and see."

Tom was hurrying along, when a lad called out,--

"Did the old woman find Bub?" and he related how she came there in
search of him. This startled Tom, and, hastening back, he told Mr.
Payson what he had heard.

"Perhaps, then," said the minister, "the old lady got tired of waiting
for me, and took Bub home with her. You may take the team and ride
over there."

Finding that Mr. Smith had not seen his wife, Tom at once concluded
that there must be something seriously wrong; and he said,--

"I was told at the village that your wife was there, trying to find
Bub. It may be they are both lost in the woods. Now, if you will get
the settlers about here together, I will rouse the villagers, and we
will make a search."

We have already described the finding of the lost woman.

The ground on the side of the river next to the minister's cabin had
been looked over repeatedly, and no one seemed to think it possible
that the child had crossed the river, and the conclusion came to be
general that he had either been carried off by a wild beast, or fallen
into the water, and been drowned; and preparations were made for
dragging the stream for the body, when one of the party saw a bit of
cloth, which Tom recognized as torn from Bub's dress, flaunting from a
twig on the tree-bridge.

"He must be on the other side!" cried Tom; and, with new hope, the
party rushed to explore the field, shouting his name.

"Here I be!" answered a childish voice; and they found him seated on
the ground, composedly picking the kernels from an ear of corn, the
channels which the tears had ploughed on his unwashed cheeks being the
only evidence of the sorrows through which he had passed; and he said,
with the air of one whose feelings had been wounded by undeserved
neglect,--

"I hasn't had any dinner."

Some theologians tell us that the sinful should never be addressed
through their fears; that love can only reform the erring. Perhaps
Mrs. Smith was unlike the rest of the race; but the terrors of that
night wrought a change in her; and Mr. Payson was surprised one day by
Mr. Smith's calling at his cabin with a fine quarter of beef, saying,
as he lugged it in,--

"I've been killing an ox, elder; and wife thought, if you wouldn't be
offended, that I'd better bring you down a piece;" adding, as he rose
to go, "Here's that due-bill that you gave me for the improvements on
the ten acres