ill never hit me again and I'll make you a rich man."

Ezekiel dropped the stick.

He opened his ponderous jaws and looked at his eldest son much as he
might at a wild beast.

"You--what?"

"Just what I say, dad. Little pitchers have big ears. Well, the big
ears have heard that you hate Ethan Allen."

"Well?"

"You would get the reward if you could."

"Well?"

"Swear that you will never hit me again----"

"I will not. Come here, you rapscalion, and I'll teach you to make a
laughingstock of me."

Zeb saw his father pick up the stick again, and he got into the corner,
and picking up a chair, held it so that his father could not strike him.

"See here, father," he said, very quietly, "you are stronger than I am.
You have a right to whip me, and I perhaps deserve it; that isn't
saying much, but it's enough. Now I want to tell you that if you
strike me I'll leave you this very night, and either join the Green
Mountain Boys, or I'll get the reward and go to York and never see you
again."

"What has come over you?"

"Nothing, only I see a way to make some money for you, or myself, and
I'll give it to you if you swear never to strike me again."

"It's a bargain."

"Honor bright?"

"Yes, honor bright."

"All right, father. Pull down your sleeves and come with me where no
one can hear what I have to say."

To the great surprise of the family, no sounds of crying or sobbing
came from the kitchen, and when Zeb's mother--a little, frail woman,
who had never had her own way since she had been married to Zeke,
opened the door an hour later and peeped in, she screamed out:

"It's all over! I felt he would do it some day."

"Do what, mother?" asked a girl of twelve.

"Your father has killed Zeb. He said he would, and now he has done it,
and he has gone to bury him."

Then there was a scene of shrieking and weeping and sobbing.

All the children joined in, and the mother was heart-broken.

In the midst of it all father and son walked in, radiant and smiling.

If Zeb had been really dead and made himself visible to his astonished
family, they could not have been more alarmed.

"Mistress Garvan, stop your blubbering. We shall have visitors this
night; sha'n't we, Zeb?"

"Yes, dad."

"Friends of mine. Oh, it will be a great time. Mistress, I'll buy the
childer new clothes, ay, that I will, and I'll have a new ox for the
farm. It is good, I tell you, to have friends."

Mistress Garvan wonder