soft moss and balsam-needles
and the brown leaves of last year, till their hearts were running over
with a deep and satisfying delight. It is hard to resist the ministry of
the woods. The sympathetic silence of the trees, the aromatic airs
that breathe through the shady spaces, the soft mingling of broken
lights--these all combine to lay upon the spirit a soothing balm, and
bring to the heart peace. And Hughie, sensitive at every pore to that
soothing ministry, before long forgot for a time even Foxy, with his
fat, white face and smiling mouth, and lying on the broad of his back,
and looking up at the far-away blue sky through the interlacing branches
and leaves, he began to feel again that it was good to be alive, and
that with all his misery there were compensations.

But any lengthened period of peaceful calm is not for boys of the age
and spirit of Hughie and his companions.

"What are you going to do?" asked Fusie, the man of adventure.

"Do nothing," said Hughie from his supine position. "This is good enough
for me."

"Not me," said Fusie, starting to climb a tall, lithe birch, while
Hughie lazily watched him. Soon Fusie was at the top of the birch, which
began to sway dangerously.

"Try to fly into that balsam," cried Hughie.

"No, sir!"

"Yes, go on."

"Can't do it."

"Oh, pshaw! you can."

"No, nor you either. That's a mighty big jump."

"Come on down, then, and let me try," said Hughie, in scorn. His
laziness was gone in the presence of a possible achievement.

In a few minutes he had taken Fusie's place a the top of the swaying
birch. It did not look so easy from the top of the birch as from the
ground to swing into the balsam-tree. However, he could not go back now.

"Dinna try it, Hughie!" cried Davie to him. "Ye'll no mak it, and ye'll
come an awfu' cropper, as sure as deith." But Hughie, swaying gently
back and forth, was measuring the distance of his drop. It was not
a feat so very difficult, but it called for good judgment and steady
nerve. A moment too soon or a moment too late in letting go, would mean
a nasty fall of twenty feet or more upon the solid ground, and one never
knew just how one would light.

"I wudna dae it, Hughie," urged Davie, anxiously.

But Hughie, swaying high in the birch, heeded not the warning, and
suddenly swinging out from the slender trunk and holding by his hands,
he described a parabola, and releasing the birch dropped on to the
balsam top. But balsam-tr