ravely but quietly to
work to earn her own living--a task in which she has slowly succeeded.

ARTHUR VENNER.

HIS GREAT DEED.

In all the old Norse legends we are sure to find the inevitable three
brothers, to the youngest of whom, Grimmel, fall all the adventures, the
dealings with the Devil, and the pot of yellow gold at the end.

Not many years ago there lived in a lonely hut on Mount Mitchell in
North Carolina this identical Grimmel and his brothers. Their father,
John Boyer, was a hunter. When he died the two elder sons, Richard and
Hugh, remained with their mother, farmed a sterile tract on the Black
Mountains and trapped bears and wolves through the great southern ranges
of the Appalachian chain. Twice in the year they came down to the hamlet
at Gray Eagle to exchange their peltry for such goods as they needed.
They were, in short, Grimmel's elder brothers, who sat satisfied in the
chimney-corner while giants, devils and trolls were carousing without.
They wore the cloth which their mother had spun, woven and made up for
them. They shot with their father's rifle, ate the same corn-dodgers,
nodded over the same Bible every evening, and drank plenty of whiskey
from the same secret still back in the gorge. It had never occurred to
them to go down into the world, to learn a trade or profession or to
make money. Why should they? Money was of very little use. They probably
did not handle twenty dollars in the year, yet they had all they wanted.

They were big and slow-moving and serious as the tame bear which lay
before the fire. At forty they always spoke of the house and farm as "my
mother's, Mistress Boyer's," and meekly obeyed the old woman as she
ordered them about with a sharp tongue. The instinct of kinship was as
strong in them as in the old Jews. They would strike a bee-line for each
other through the trackless wilderness when miles apart. This happened
often.

"How do I know where to find Richard?" said Hugh. "I don't know how I
know. Something in my bones tells me."

I think that when the youngest brother, Peter, left the mountains these
older men suffered a kind of physical loss ever after, as if an arm or a
leg had been taken from them. Peter was somewhere out in the world,
living by his wits. God had given him precisely the same kind of wits as
his brothers, but with a single added drop of uneasy leaven. He tumbled
out of his cradle when he was a baby to see what lay beyond. He was
thi