METAPHYSICS OF BEAR HUNTING. 367 



nature's sweet — " Sleep, indeed ! I fear I stall never go 

 to sleep again. I find I shall have to take care of myself, 

 and see fair play. Things are almost getting serious. 



Just to think how long that panther's teeth were ! He 

 keeps them very white, considering ! 



I wonder if its daylight up in old Kentuck now, and what 

 they are all doing. That good old man is trimming grape 

 vines. He has prayed for me this morning. He can pray ! 

 And the girls, — weeding flowers, I warrant. And Willie, 

 that glorious boy, with the seraph struggling through his 

 great eyes, — pranking ! pranking ! like an elf. That's a 

 catamount mewing ; how soft his voice is — ^butter wouldn't 

 melt in his mouth. Confound this drowsy fit — I had like to 

 have fallen. This nodding " 'twixt earth and sky" is rather 

 more serious than, in my college days, I considered Homeric 

 nods to be. 



At it again down there ! " Celestial Syren's harmonies !" 

 you are discord to it ! Howling, growling, snarling, yelling, 

 spitting, snapping — whew ! how the bones crack — sweet- 

 tempered family these Felines ! They are giving each other 

 farewell salutes and embraces — affectionate creatures ! 



But, thank Fate ! it is the order of nature that day must 

 come, though it does seem to be a hundred years. And it 

 has come at last. The wassailers of the night, striped, 

 dotted, frecked, spotted, one and all, shrink away with 

 mean, guilty looks, while 



" The morn, in russet mantle clad, 

 Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hiU." 



Those surly panthers, though, unwilling to go, stop in full 

 view under an oak, to lick their paws, and are looking back 

 wistfully as if they would have thanked daylight to tarry yet 

 awhile. But it will not do, you are not Joshuas, and the sun 

 can't stand still for your convenience. Good-by ! When you 



