THAT evening, while the others went out to sit by the camp-fire, Silas Strong put the children to bed and lay down beside them. They begged him for a story, he had neither skill nor practice in narration, he had, as the rustic merchant is wont to say, a desire to please. He knew that he had disappointed the children and was doing his best to recover their esteem. Possibly he ought to try and be more like other folks. He rubbed his thin, sandy beard, he groped among the treasures of his memory.

Infrequently he had gone over them with Sinth or the Lady Ann, but briefly and with halting words and slow reflection. He had that respect for the past which is a characteristic of the true historian, but, in his view, it gave him little to say of his own exploits. He was wont to observe, ironically, that others knew more of them than he knew himself. Owing, it may be, to his little infirmity of speech, he had never been misled into the broad way of prevarication. Brevity had been his refuge and his strength. He regarded with contempt the boastful narratives of woodsmen.

Now the siren voices of the little folks had made him thoughtful. Had he nothing to give them but disappointment? He hesitated. Then he fell, as it were, but, happily, for the sake of those two he had begun to love, and not through pride. It was a kind of modesty which caused him to reach for the candle and blow it out. Then, boldly, as it were, he began to sing a brief account of one of his own adventures. He could sing without stammering, and therefore he sang an odd and almost tuneless chant. He accepted such rhyme and rhythm as chanced to drift in upon the monotonous current of his epic; but he turned not aside for them. He sang glibly, jumping in and out of that old, melodious trail of "The Son of a Gamboleer." Strong called this unique creation of his

"THE STORY OF THE MELLERED BEAR.

"One day yer Uncle Silas went for to kill a bear,

An' a dog he took an' follered which his name was

little Zeb;

Bym-by we come acrost a track which looked as big

as sin,

An' Zeb he hollered 'twas a bear, which I didn't quite

believe in

Until I got down on my knee, an' then I kind o'

laughed,

For su'thin' cur'us showed me where he'd wrote his

autygraft,

An' which way he was travellin' all in the frosty snow;

An' I follered Zeb, the bear-dog, as fast as I could go,

An' purty soon I see

Where the bear had tore his overcoat upon a hem

lock-tree,

An' left some threads behind him which fell upon his

track,

Which I wouldn't wonder if he done a-scratchin' of

his back,

Which caused me for to grin an' laugh all on ac

count o' my feelin's."

Here came a pause, in which the singer sought a moment of relaxation, as it would seem, in a thoughtful and timely cough.

"Bym-by I come up kind o' dost an' where that I

could see

Zeb was jumpin' like a rabbit an' a-hollerin' t' me;

An' I could see the ol' bear's home all underneath a

ledge,

An' the track of his big moggasins up to the very edge.

I took an' fetched some pine-knots an' a lot of ol'

dead limbs,

An' built a fire upon his door-step an' let the smoke

blow in;

An' then I took a piece o' rope an' tethered Zeb away

So's that he'd keep his breeches fer to use another

day.

An' purty soon I listened an' I heard the bear

a-coughin',

An' he sneezed an' bellered out as if he guessed he'd

be excused.

All t' once he bust out an' the rifle give a yell,

An' I wouldn't wonder if he thought—"

The narrator was halted for half a moment by another frog in his throat—as he explained. Then he went on:

"An' Zeb he tore away an' took an' fastened on the

bear,

An' they rolled down-hill together, an' the critter

ripped the air,

An' I didn't dast t' shoot him for fear o' killin' Zeb,

So I clubbed my rifle on the bear an' mellered up his

head."

Moist with perspiration, Silas Strong rose and stood by the bedside and blew. Fifty miles with a boat on his back could not have taxed him more severely. He answered a few queries touching the size, fierceness, and fate of the bear. Then he retreated, whispering as he left the door, "Strong's ahead."

Zeb lay on the foot of the bed, and Socky, being a little timid in the dark, coaxed him to lie between them, his paws on the pillow. With their hands on the back of Zeb, they felt sure no harm could come to them.

"Do you love Uncle Silas?" It was the question of little Sue.

Socky answered, promptly, "Yes; do you?"

"Yes."

"Hunters don't never wear good clothes." So Socky went on, presently, as if apologizing to his own spirit for the personal appearance of his uncle. "They git 'em all tore up by the bears an' panthers."

"That's how he got his pants tore," Sue suggested, thinking of his condition that day they met him on the trail.

"Had a fight with a 'kunk," Socky answered, quickly. He had overheard something of that adventure at Robin Lake.

They lay thinking a moment. Then up spoke the boy. "I wisht he had a gold watch."

With Socky the ladder by which a man rose to greatness had many rounds. The first was great physical strength, the next physical appearance; the possession of a rifle and the sacred privilege of bathing the same in bear's-oil was distinctly another; symbols of splendor, such as watches, finger-rings, and the like, had their places in the ladder, and qualities of imagination were not wholly disregarded.

Sue tried to think of something good to say—something, possibly, which would explain her love. It was her first trial at analysis.

"He wouldn't hurt nobody," she suggested.

"He can carry a tree on his back"—so it seemed to Socky.

"He wouldn't let nothin' touch us," said Sue, still working the vein of kindness which she had discovered.

"He's the most terrible powerful man in the world," Socky averred, and unconsciously twisted the soft ear of Zeb until the latter gave a little yelp of complaint.

"He can kill bears an' panthers an' deers an'—an' ketch fish," said Sue.

"He could swaller a whale," Socky declared, as he thought of the story of Jonah.

"Aunt Sinthy has got a hole in her shoe." The girl imparted this in a whisper.

Both felt the back of Zeb and were silent for a little.

"She blubbers!" Socky exclaimed, with a slight touch of contempt in the way he said it.

"Maybe she got her feet wet and Uncle Silas Spanked her."

"Big folks don't get spanked," the boy assured Sue.

"Do you like her?"

He answered quickly, as if the topic were a bore to him, "Purty well."

Sue had hoped for greater frankness. Her own opinion of her Aunt Cynthia, while favorable, was unsettled. She thought of a thing in connection with her aunt which had given her some concern. She had been full of wonder as to its hidden potentialities.

In a moment Sue broached the subject by saying, "She's got a big mold on her neck."

"With a long hair on it," Socky added. "Bet you wouldn't dast pull that hair."

Sue squirmed a little. That single hair had, somehow, reminded her of the string on a jumping-jack. She reflected a moment, "I put my finger on it," said she, boastfully.

"That's nothing," Socky answered. "Uncle Silas let me feel the shot what he got in his arm. Gee, it was kind o' funny." He squirmed a little and thoughtfully felt his foot.

Sue recognized the superior attraction of the buried shot and held her peace a moment. Both had begun to yawn.

"Wisht it was t'-morrow," said Sue.

"Why?"

"'Cause I'm going to see the beautiful lady."

"An' the crow, too," Socky whispered.

They were, indeed, to see her sooner than they knew—in dreamland.

Zeb now retired discreetly to the foot of the bed.

After a little silence Sue put her arms about her brother's neck and pressed him close.

"Wisht I was in heaven," she said, drowsily, with a little cry of complaint.

"Why?"

"So I could see my mother."

"She's way up a Trillion miles beyond where the hawks fly," said the boy, as he gaped wearily.

Thereafter the room was silent, save for the muffled barking of Zeb in his slumber. He, too, was dreaming, no doubt, of things far away.

---