fox.

"Boys, that skin's worth thirty dollars!" Tom exclaimed.

"But I shouldn't like to be the one to skin it," Addison said. "Don't
touch it with your hands, Tom."

While the girls were telling us of the fox's strange actions we warmed
ourselves at the fire in the camp stove, and then all set off for home,
for by this time it was getting late and the night was growing colder.

Halstead led the way with the two lanterns; Addison and I, each
shouldering a basket of mitchella, followed; Tom, dragging the body of
the fox with his hooked stick, came behind the girls. It was nearly
midnight when we reached home.

Tom still thought that the fox's silvery pelt ought to be saved; but the
old Squire persuaded him not to run the risk of skinning the creature.

CHAPTER XXX

WHEN BEARS WERE DENNING UP

Despite the hard times and low prices, the old Squire determined to go
on with his lumber business that winter; and as more teams were needed
for work at his logging camp in the woods, he bought sixteen
work-horses, from Prince Edward Island. They had come by steamer to
Portland; and the old Squire, with two hired men, went down to get them.
He and the men drove six of them home, hitched to a new express wagon,
and led the other ten behind.

The horses were great, docile creatures, with shaggy, clumsy legs, hoofs
as big as dinner plates, and fetlocks six inches long. Later we had to
shear their legs, because the long hair loaded up so badly with snow.
Several of them were light red in color, and had crinkly manes and
tails; and three or four weighed as much as sixteen hundred pounds
apiece. Each horse had its name, age, and weight on a tag. I still
remember some of the names. There was Duncan, Ducie, Trube, Lill, Skibo,
Sally, Prince, and one called William-le-Bon.

They reached us in October, but we were several weeks getting them
paired in spans and ready to go up into the woods for the winter's work.

The first snow that fall caught us in the midst of "housing-time," but
fine weather followed it, so that we were able to finish our farmwork
and get ready for winter.

Housing-time! How many memories of late fall at the old farm cling to
that word! It is one of those homely words that dictionary makers have
overlooked, and refers to those two or three weeks when you are making
everything snug at the farm for freezing weather and winter snow; when
you bring the sheep and young cattle home from the pasture, do t