nt, well enuff; it meant that, if I didn't do it
right, I'd git a gaddin', 'cause the old man was famous for gaddins'.

"Arter breakfast mother put me up a good dinner of bread and meat, and I
shouldered my axe and started for the wood-lot, 'bout three miles up the
mountain.

"I whistled along and didn't think nothin' 'bout ther walk; 'cause, yer
see, I allus liked ther woods, and enjoyed bein' thar. Arter I got to the
lot, I found the wood, and went ter work to get it piled. 'Twarn't much
of a job, and I got it done afore noon and then sot down on a log and
waited for the old man ter come. Wal, I sot and waited, and begun ter get
mighty lonesome and ter think 'bout Injins, though I knowed there warn't
no Injins thar. I waited so long I got hungry, and concluded I'd take a
bite of the bread and meat mother'd put up.

"I sot down on a log, and put my basket on the stump, and went ter
eatin'. I never smelt anything so good as that dinner smelt, less 'twas a
good venison steak on the coals, when you're putty hungry.

"Wal, I sot there, eatin' away, and, the fust thing I knowed, I kind 'er
felt suthin' tetch my shoulder. I turned my head, and thar was a big
black bar, with his nose within a foot of mine. I've seen bars sence that
time, and big ones too, but that bar looked bigger'n a ox ter me. I
didn't stop for nothin', but jist lited out, and the bar arter me. Maybe
yer think you've seen runnin'; but I tell yer honestly, boys, yer never
see nothin', like ther time I made gittin' away from that bar.

"I looked over my shoulder once in a while, but 'twarn't no use; thar was
that bar right behind me, growin' bigger and bigger every minute, it
seemed ter me. The harder I run, the wus I was off. I didn't gain a foot
on ther critter. My heart riz rite inter my throte, and my bar riz up so
I lost my cap,--leastways I've allus 'spected that was the reason I lost
it. I didn't know what ter do. I kep' on runnin', but my wind was givin'
out, and I knew I couldn't stan' it much longer; so I made a break for a
good sized white birch I see, and the way I shinned up thet tree, would a
bin a credit to any major-gen'ral, I tell yer.

"When ther bar come to ther foot of ther tree he sot down on his
haunches, ter kinder get breath a little, and then he begun ter climb it;
and blast my picter boys, ef he couldn't giv me three pints in the game
of climbin', and then beat me. It didn't seem ter me he was more'n a
second, gittin' up. I kep