sed to
censure as wanting in proper self-respect.

Tom had no particular friend. He seemed to like all boys alike, except
those whom he thought insincere and affected, and such were the butt
of his sharp wit and ready ridicule.

Tom was famous among the boys for telling stories, and these often
related to his own mishaps. A knot of boys was often seen gathered
around him to listen to his random talk, his wit, and his day dreams.
Though a poor scholar, he was an apt talker, and almost any subject
would furnish him a text.

His father was a Maine lumber-dealer, and he had spent much time with
his father in the logging camps and backwoods towns of the Pine Tree
State. His adventures in these regions, told in his droll way, often
excited the wonder of his companions.

"Did you ever see a bear in the backwoods?" one of the boys asked him
one day.

"I never saw a live one but once."

"What did you do?"

"Do? I received a polite bow from him, and then I remembered that I
was wanted at home, and went home immediately.

"It was this way."--All of the boys of the class now gathered around
Tommy, as was the custom when he seemed about to tell one of his odd
stories.

"I attempted one day to rob a pigeon-woodpecker's nest which I had
found in one of the old logging roads that had not been used for
several years. The nest was in a big hollow tree. The top of the tree
had blown off, leaving a trunk some twelve or fifteen feet high.

[Illustration: {TOMMY AND THE BEAR.}]

"These woodpeckers make a hole for their nest so large that you can
run the whole length of your arm into it. I had long wanted a few eggs
from one of these birds' nests. I had heard the lumber-men tell how
white and handsome the eggs are.

"I was climbing up the tree very fast, my heart beating like a
trip-hammer, when I heard a scratching sound inside the big trunk, and
then a shaking at the top. I thought it very mysterious. I stopped,
and looked up. I saw something black, like a fur cap. I opened my eyes
and mouth so as to take a big look, and just then _out popped a bear's
head_ from the top of the trunk, and looked over very inquiringly. I
just looked once. He seemed to recognize me. He bowed. Then I
remembered that father had said I must come home early. I dropped to
the ground, and I never picked up my feet so lively before in my life.
I _flew_. When I got safely out of the woods, I thought of the
woodpecker. I never felt so glad for any bird