here, now, 'Liza Jane,'
says I, right to her, when she told me, 'if I could git fifty dollars
for that dog, I certain' would. Perhaps some o' the circus folks would
like to buy him; they 've taken in a stream o' money this day.' But
'Liza Jane ain't never inclined to listen to advice. 'T is a dreadful
poor-spirited-lookin' creatur'. I don't want no right o' dower in him,
myself."

"A good coon dog 's worth somethin', certain," said John York
handsomely.

"If he is a good coon dog," added Isaac Brown. "I would n't have
parted with old Rover, here, for a good deal of money when he was right
in his best days; but a dog like him 's like one of the family. Stop
an' have some supper, won't ye, Mis' Price?"--as the thin old creature
was flitting off again. At that same moment this kind invitation was
repeated from the door of the house; and Mrs. Price turned in,
unprotesting and always sociably inclined, at the open gate.

II.

It was a month later, and a whole autumn's length colder, when the two
men were coming home from a long tramp through the woods. They had
been making a solemn inspection of a wood-lot that they owned together,
and had now visited their landmarks and outer boundaries, and settled
the great question of cutting or not cutting some large pines. When it
was well decided that a few years' growth would be no disadvantage to
the timber, they had eaten an excellent cold luncheon and rested from
their labors.

"I don't feel a day older 'n ever I did when I get out in the woods thi
way," announced John York, who was a prim, dusty-looking little man, a
prudent person, who had been selectman of the town at least a dozen
times.

"No more do I," agreed his companion, who was large and jovial and
open-handed, more like a lucky sea-captain than a farmer. After
pounding a slender walnut-tree with a heavy stone, he had succeeded in
getting down a pocketful of late-hanging nuts which had escaped the
squirrels, and was now snapping them back, one by one, to a venturesome
chipmunk among some little frost-bitten beeches. Isaac Brown had a
wonderfully pleasant way of getting on with all sorts of animals, even
men. After a while they rose and went their way, these two companions,
stopping here and there to look at a possible woodchuck's hole, or to
strike a few hopeful blows at a hollow tree with the light axe which
Isaac had carried to blaze new marks on some of the line-trees on the
farther edge of th