156 What Birds Have Done With Me 



doubtless said too much, but Mr. Esau's shade 

 I'll not say skin, for ordinarily they are denied 

 the power of speech said even more and the 

 children were as eager to get hold of the killer 

 as they had been to handle the skin of the thing 

 killed, and I am quite sure it would not have been 

 anything like as gently. 



Bright and early Saturday morning following, 

 the girl said there was a boy in the outer office 

 to see me and when she sent him in I half caught 

 my breath, for my hunch was true and I had se- 

 lected the right urchin in No. five School-room. 

 Though scarcely ten years of age, he was quite 

 an old friend of mine, and I patted him on the 

 shoulder and for the fortieth time, I reminded him 

 of the bitter fight he put up at the age of five 

 when I vaccinated him. However much he had 

 been in the habit of rewarding my reminiscence 

 with a pleased little grin, no ghost of anything of 

 the kind was on duty nor could be called from 

 afar. 



Clearly Billy was in trouble, and the world 

 over, the deeper the trouble, the more difficult it 

 is to get rid of the perilous stuff that weighs upon 

 the heart. He was over-whelmed by a mountain 

 that stood squarely across his pathway and could 

 only say when I asked him what the matter was: 

 "Oh! nothen Doc, that is, nothen much." He 

 evidently found the room warm and I told him 



