302 OLD BILL. 



stumps and rampikes standing like sentinels all over 

 the clearing showed that fire had lent a hand in mak- 

 ing this opening in the forest. A tidy looking log cabin 

 stood on a sandy knoll in the middle of the opening. 

 Back of it I could also see the end of a stable or small 

 barn, as well as a mound of earth, which I afterwards 

 learned was a root house. 



While I was taking observations the door of 

 the cabin opened and who should appear at the 

 threshold but dear old Carey of shanty days. He did 

 not look a day older as he stood there with his shaggy 

 hair and beard silhouetted against the sky. A home- 

 made flannel shirt open at the neck, a broad belt, and 

 a pair of overalls stuck in the tops of a pair of cow- 

 hide boots, completed his outfit. He recognized me 

 before I could speak, and the memory of his "I swan, 

 where did you drop from," comes back with a relish 

 after a lapse of twenty years. "Come in, old sailor 

 boy, and have a bite to eat. I knew someone was 

 coming, and so I told Mandy," he went on, "when my 

 fork fell on the floor at breakfast and stood up. Now 

 don't stand looking around there like a duck in a 

 thunder storm, there ain't nothing to see 'round 

 here, so step up. Mandy," this I learned was his 

 wife, "come here, girl, and see one of my old shanty 

 boys. You will be glad to see him, even if he does 

 look like one of them city gents that wear collars and 

 blacking on their shoes." And so he ran on until I 

 had been ushered into what he termed the "home 

 plate of the clearing" and was installed on a chair 

 without a back opposite him at the end of the table. 



Mandy, in the interval, was busy dusting a place 

 for me with her apron and getting down a plate, knife 



