at's the talk! If nec'sary we'll hitch Purvis up with t'other hoss
an' git our haulin' done."

He and Purvis roared with laughter and the strength of the current swept
me along with them.

"We're the luckiest folks in the world, anyway," Uncle Peabody went on.
"Bart's alive an' there's three feet o' snow on the level an' more
comin' an' it's colder'n Greenland."

It was such a bitter day that we worked only three hours and came back
to the house and played Old Sledge by the fireside.

Rodney Barnes came over that afternoon and said that he would lend us a
horse for the hauling.

When we went to bed that night Uncle Peabody whispered:

"Say, ol' feller, we was in purty bad shape this mornin'. If we hadn't
'a' backed up sudden an' took a new holt I guess Aunt Deel would 'a'
caved in complete an' we'd all been a-bellerin' like a lot o' lost
cattle."

We had good sleighing after that and got our bark and salts to market
and earned ninety-eight dollars. But while we got our pay in paper "bank
money," we had to pay our debts in wheat, salts or corn, so that our
earnings really amounted to only sixty-two and a half dollars, my uncle
said. This more than paid our interest. We gave the balance and ten
bushels of wheat to Mr. Grimshaw for a spavined horse, after which he
agreed to give us at least a year's extension on the principal.

We felt easy then.

CHAPTER VIII

MY THIRD PERIL

"Mr. Purvis" took his pay in salts and stayed with us until my first
great adventure cut him off. It came one July day when I was in my
sixteenth year. He behaved badly, and I as any normal boy would have
done who had had my schooling in the candle-light. We had kept Grimshaw
from our door by paying interest and the sum of eighty dollars on the
principal. It had been hard work to live comfortably and carry the
burden of debt. Again Grimshaw had begun to press us. My uncle wanted to
get his paper and learn, if possible, when the Senator was expected in
Canton.

So he gave me permission to ride with Purvis to the post-office--a
distance of three miles--to get the mail. Purvis rode in our only saddle
and I bareback, on a handsome white filly which my uncle had given me
soon after she was foaled. I had fed and petted and broken and groomed
her and she had grown so fond of me that my whistled call would bring
her galloping to my side from the remotest reaches of the pasture. A
chunk of sugar or an ear of corn or a pleasant grooming