es of rest in the twilight has passed, but Jotham remains.
He has told the tales of his grandfather's exploits as a hunter so
many times that he not only believes them himself but is equally
sure that everyone else believes them.

*****

Yet Jotham is in the main taciturn. It is only when the
northeaster soughs in the eaves and brings him leisure that he
drops into narrative. His tales are grotesque fancies, simple
yarns withal, such as fluttered from the homely life of pasture
and woodland in early days of enforced idleness to light on the
threshing floor of some great old barn, or to warm themselves at
the big kitchen fireplace on winter nights when the wind guffawed
down the throat of the big chimney and sprinkled the hearth with
an attic salt of snow for the seasoning of them for the country
palate. I do not doubt Jotham's grandfather told them of his
grandfather and that they belong to neither but are local folk
lore, pasture sagas, changelings born of the queer union of east
wind and blueberry blooms, brought up by hand--farm hand.

"My grandfather," says Jotham, "was a great hunter. On stormy days
like this he would take down his old long, singlebarrelled gun and
go out and bring home all kinds of game, mostly ducks and geese.
In his day the ducks and geese bred around here and you could get
'em any time, but the best shooting was in the early fall on a
northeaster. The heavy waves down on the coast drive the birds out
of their feeding grounds and they come up to the fresh-water ponds
inland to drink and get a change of feed. It is the same way with
the shore birds; yellow-legs and plover and the like; though in my
grandfather's day they didn't care much about such small game.
Bigger birds were plenty enough. Grandfather used to hate
yellow-legs, though, for they are telltales."

[Illustration: Wild Geese in Flight over the Pond]

"Once he went over to Muddy Pond loaded for duck. It is a great
place for ducks. In those days they used to come in there and
sometimes pack it solid full. You could hardly see the pond for
the ducks in it. Grandfather always knew just the right day to go,
and this time when 'he looked down on the pond from the hill he
saw hardly any water at all, nothing much but ducks. It was the
chance of his life. He slipped down the hill among the scrubs to
the cedars and then began to creep carefully up. You know what the
pond is like; perfectly round and only a couple of acres or so,
with