placed them on the
hearth in front of the fire; and, in watching them roast and sputter, he
soon forgot his fears.

John began to talk to father about old times, and soon got him started
telling stories about hunting.

"Yes, I used to go after wild turkeys with Will Munroe, the blacksmith,
when I was a boy. One day we met Ben Wellington, and he said he had just
come down the Back Road, and had seen a bear in a huckleberry patch,
and if we'd go with him, we could kill him. He borrowed a gun of Tom
Fessenden, and we drew our charges, and loaded with a bullet and some
buckshot. When we got to the place, we crept along carefully, and saw
the bear stripping off the huckleberries and eating them. He was so busy
he didn't notice us, and we got quite close to him. Will and I fired,
and he rose and turned to us, and Ben fired. We ran off a little, loaded
again, and went back, and found the bear was dead.

"In the winter we used to go fox-hunting. What fun we had! I vum, I'd
like to go now."

This gave John a good opening, and he said: "Young David Fiske and Amos
Locke are going after foxes to-morrow, and they want Ben to go with
them. Benny worked hard to-day, and did most of the jobs that you laid
out for him to do to-morrow; and I told him that if you would let him
go, I would do his chores."

"Well," said father, "one can't be young but once in one's life. I
certainly did have great fun hunting when I was a boy; and if you'll do
Benny's chores, I think we can manage to let him go. But it was a pretty
sly trick of yours, John, to lead the talk around to hunting, and get me
worked up over it, before you said anything about to-morrow."

[Sidenote: LUXURIOUS LIVING]

"I thought it would be a good idea to make you remember how much you
liked it yourself."

The clock struck nine, and we got up and put our things away. Father
read a chapter from the Bible. Then I raked up a great mass of red
coals, and covered them carefully with ashes to keep them alive till the
morning.

John and I went up to the attic, where we slept; and as I undressed and
lay down in my straw bed, I could hear the wind hum and whistle as it
caught on the roof, and cold draughts swept through the attic.

I pulled the blankets and comforter closely about me, and was soon
asleep, dreaming of foxes.

When I awoke, I jumped out of bed and stepped into some snow that had
sifted in through the cracks and formed a little drift over my leather
breeches, w