34 jock's lake. 



man that don't work any and don't try to make livin' a 

 little easier for somebody else, runs a mighty big chance of 

 not makin' much of a neighbor of himself anywhere." 



"But I don't see, Mr. Wilkinson," interrupted the Pro- 

 fessor, who seemed amusedly interested in the disquisition 

 of the backwoodsman,— "I don't quite see that you have 

 fairly established your original proposition that .you have 

 neighbors, when the nearest person is "seven miles away and 

 no neighbor at all in any proper sense of the term." 



'• Oh, very well," replied he, doubtless stumbled by the 

 assumed gravity of the Professor. "You mean by neigh- 

 bor the man in the next yard, I suppose, that knows what 

 you had for breakfast in the moruin', and who you brought 

 home to dinner with you, and hears your wife when she 

 spanks the baby, and — " 



"Never mind him," said Benson, "he's a pedagogue, 

 and takes everything like the multiplication table. He 

 don't realize how the imagination of a genuine backwoods- 

 nian sweeps around for twenty miles and takes in all the 

 people of a circuit as his neighbors. " 



"But the boats, Wilkinson, where are they hid? I'm as 

 empty as a last year's chippiug-bird's nest, and I must have 

 some supper! "—and Thompson emphasized his remark by 

 patting his stomach, in a patronizing way, with his open 

 palms. 



" You can't find 'em— they're over beyend the spring, up 

 the hill a little ways, behind a log and covered up with 

 leaves. I'll go and show you, and help you get 'em down 



