father and mother started doing
something the instant they heard of it. So father and Laddie rode
around the neighbourhood and talked it over, and the next night they
had a meeting at our schoolhouse; men for miles came, and they planned
a regular old-fashioned foxchase, and every one was wild about it.

Laddie told it at Pryors' and the Princess wanted to go; she asked to
go with him, and if you please, Mr. Pryor wanted to go too, and their
Thomas. They attended the meeting to tell how people chase foxes in
England, where they seem to hunt them most of the time. Father said:
"Thank God for even a foxchase, if it will bring Mr. Pryor among his
neighbours and help him to act sensibly." They are going away fifteen
miles or farther, and form a big circle of men from all directions,
some walking in a line, and others riding to bring back any foxes that
escape, and with dogs, and guns, they are going to rout out every one
they can find, and kill them so they won't take the geese, little pigs,
lambs, and Hoods' Dorking rooster. Laddie had a horn that Mr. Pryor
gave him when he told him this country was showing signs of becoming
civilized at last; but Leon grinned and said he'd beat that.

Then when you wanted him, he was in the wood house loft at work, but
father said he couldn't get into mischief there. He should have seen
that churn when it was full of wedding breakfast! We ate for a week
afterward, until things were all moulded, and we didn't dare anymore.
One night I begged so hard and promised so faithfully he trusted me; he
did often, after I didn't tell about the Station; and I went to the
loft with him, and watched him work an hour. He had a hollow limb
about six inches through and fourteen long. He had cut and burned it
to a mere shell, and then he had scraped it with glass inside and out,
until it shone like polished horn. He had shaved the wool from a piece
of sheepskin, soaked, stretched, and dried it, and then fitted it over
one end of the drumlike thing he had made, and tacked and bound it in a
little groove at the edge. He put the skin on damp so he could stretch
it tight. Then he punched a tiny hole in the middle, and pulled
through it, down inside the drum, a sheepskin thong rolled in resin,
with a knot big enough to hold it, and not tear the head. Then he took
it under his arm and we slipped across the orchard below the Station,
and went into the hollow and tried it.

It worked! I almost fel