won his spurs.

The story of the Kitten is told, for he was a kitten no longer.

POINTERS FROM A PORCUPINE QUILL

HE wasn't handsome--the original owner of this quill--and I can't say
that he was very smart. He was only a slow-witted, homely old porky who
once lived by the Glimmerglass. But in spite of his slow wits and his
homeliness a great many things happened to him in the course of his
life.

He was born in a hollow hemlock log, on a wild April morning, when the
north wind was whipping the lake with snow, and when winter seemed to
have come back for a season. The Glimmerglass was neither glimmering nor
glassy that morning, but he and his mother were snug and warm in their
wooden nest, and they cared little for the storm that was raging
outside.

It has been said by some that porcupines lay eggs, the hard, smooth
shells of which are furnished by a kind and thoughtful Providence for
the protection of the mothers from their prickly offspring until the
latter have fairly begun their independent existence. Other people say
that two babies invariably arrive at once, and that one of them is
always dead before it is born. But when my Porcupine discovered America
he had neither a shell on his back nor a dead twin brother by his side.
Neither was he prickly. He was covered all over with soft, furry,
dark-brown hair. If you had searched carefully along the middle of his
back you might possibly have found the points of the first quills, just
peeping through the skin; but as yet the thick fur hid them from sight
and touch unless you knew just where and how to look for them.

He was a very large baby, larger even than a new-born bear cub, and no
doubt his mother felt a justifiable pride in his size and his general
peartness. She was certainly very careful of him and very anxious for
his safety, for she kept him out of sight, and no one ever saw him
during those first days and weeks of his babyhood. She did not propose
to have any lynxes or wild-cats or other ill-disposed neighbors fondling
him until his quills were grown. After that they might give him as many
love-pats as they pleased.

He grew rapidly, as all porcupine babies do. Long hairs, tipped with
yellowish-white, came out through the dense fur, and by and by the
quills began to show. His teeth were lengthening, too, as his mother
very well knew, and between the sharp things in his mouth and those on
his back and sides he was fast becoming a very formida