Fee. 9, 1907.] 
doing, but of course did not understand how 
it came about. After getting my can full, I 
waited until he started back, and we walked 
to the store together, while he explained what 
had happened. 
As we reached the steps where our patrons 
were sitting, Mr. Chatman slowly arose, and 
folding up his paper, stepped up to the young 
men, just as we were handing them the worms 
and said, “You may pay me, please. These 
are my hired men, and we are just waiting here 
to load hoop poles as soon as the car is 
placed.” 
They looked a little puzzled; but as we were 
too much astonished to protest, and seeing 
nothing in Mr. Chatman’s face but the most 
sober sincerity, they handed him the money, 
which he put in his pocket. 
“I must go over to the station and hurry up 
that car,” he said, as he started down the 
street. 
The fishermen went on with their bait, while 
Robert and I resumed our seats to think it 
over. The next glimpse we had of Mr. Chat¬ 
man he was going into a building where 
there was an ice cream sign hanging out, and 
he had a half dozen children following him. 
“I believe,” said Robert, as he sprinkled 
sugar on his berries one night and then 
shoved the bowl along so that Uncle Nick 
could get some for his tea, “that I never see a 
man put sugar in his tea without thinking of 
Lute Stoker. Lute was about the meanest, 
1 stingiest old critter that ever lived. People 
used to say that the only way they could tell 
him from his hogs was by countin’ the legs. 
He wouldn’t use half as much as he needed 
to eat himself, and he skimped his family so 
they all cleared out and left him. Of course, 
as such folks alw r ays does, he saved up a lot 
of money, but that didn’t do him any good. 
Between wantin’ to git more and bein’ afraid 
he’d lose what he had, he was about as mis¬ 
erable as a pauper. Well, finally he died, and 
while he was in his last sickness, some of the 
neighbors went in to see if they couldn’t make 
him a little more comfortable. Lute talked to 
them a good deal about his life, and said he 
guessed he’d made a mistake. He thought he 
had been almost too economical about some 
things, and he believed if he had his life to 
live over again he should take sugar in his tea.” 
“It’s a safe guess,” Jim remarked, as he 
threw the head of the trout he was eating to 
Terry, and then cut off a liberal piece of the 
meat to square things with Lassie, “that that 
man didn’t like dogs.” 
“You don’t have to guess again,” Robert 
replied; “he hated dogs, and dogs hated him. 
There wasn’t a dog anywhere around there 
but rather lay a half day for a chance to bite 
Lute than dig out a woodchuck. The boys 
didn’t like him any better than the dogs did, 
and if one of them saw him goin’ along the 
road, when the dog was out of sight, he’d gen¬ 
erally manage to call the dog somehow. Two 
or three of the boys got licked for it, and 
some of the dogs had to be shot, but that didn’t 
* seem to stop it much. First and last, every 
dog around there had his chance, except one 
| poor little fellow that had a crippled leg, and 
couldn’t run very fast. He’d try it, every time 
he saw Lute, but he wasn’t quick enough so 
but that he’d git kicked out of the way. The 
boys used to claim that after Lute died the 
little dog would go and sit on his grave and 
howi in the moonlight, because he got cheated 
out of his chance.” 
“Well,” said Henry, as he rocked his chair 
back from the table and began to fill his pipe, 
I" “the best opinion you can get of a man is 
the combined judgment of a boy and a dog. 
That is, I mean for real, sincere manhood. 
J- Of course, I expect some would rather have 
I the verdict of a jury composed of bankers, 
students and ministers; but when you come to 
sift matters down fine, such a verdict don’t 
really amount to anything, unless perhaps it 
is a sort of classification in the pig-pen. If 
you want an accurate measure of the fourth 
dimension you must depend upon the boy and 
the dog. Then, too, they know more than 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
men. Now, for instance, here are Jim and 
Robert, both planning to go home in a few 
days. They don’t want to. They know that 
the minute they get away from here their 
thoughts will be back in camp, and they will 
wish that their bodies were, too; but they are 
going for all that. Do you think a boy would 
be so foolish? No; a boy would stay right 
here where it’s comfortable and the fishing 
is good until some one came and dragged 
him away.” 
“That’s good, sound argument,” Jim said; 
“and if I could depend upon any one to come 
and drag me away just about two minutes be¬ 
fore my affairs all went to smash I should stay, 
but I am afraid thej r would forget to come.” 
“I don’t know how the shop is running,” 
Robert remarked. “When I started away I 
thought I couldn’t possibly leave it more than 
one week, and now it’s the end of the third. 
If I stay much longer there’s one man I can 
depend on coming to drag me away, and that’s 
the sheriff.” 
Very little had been said previous to this 
time about their actual departure, for we were 
none of us great hands at crossing bridges 
until we came to them. However, we all knew 
it must come, and so the subject once opened, 
it was there definitely decided that they would 
start the next day but one, and that one should 
be spent in a united effort to get a good catch 
to send to the friends at home. It was a 
pretty quiet group around the fire that night. 
Robert and Jim were dreading to go, and 
Henry and I were dreading to have them. It 
was business, with its meddlesome crowbar 
prying them out of camp. 
“I wish,” said Jim, as he poked the half- 
burned sticks closer together, and then leaned 
back to watch the sparks rise, “that I could 
stay until old Billy comes. It would be better 
than going to a circus to see him stir things 
up around here.” 
“I’ll bet,” replied Robert, “that the first 
thing he’ll say when he gets here will be, ‘I 
hadn’t ought to have come, but Lucy took on 
so, I had to satisfy her.’ 
“You’ve hit it this time,” Jim continued. 
“He was swearing he couldn’t come when I 
left Oswenango; but of course, I knew he 
would.” 
William Morgan was his name, but we al¬ 
ways spoke of him as old Billy. He was big 
and strong and had a wonderful store of vital¬ 
ity; in fact, his vitality had been a blessing 
not only to himself, but to every one who had 
anything to do with him. He was so full of it 
that there was no space left for blue days or 
sour spots. Although he was a score of years 
our senior, we never thought of that, for he 
was aching for a joke or scuffle all the time. 
As boys, we played in Billy’s drug store, and 
asked him foolish questions about the cur¬ 
iously colored bottles or watched with envy the 
corner which was devoted to a display of guns 
and fishing tackle. Now our boys are doing 
the same thing, and all the change we can see 
in old Billy is the color of his hair. We would 
listen for hours at a time while he discussed 
fishing with other anglers, and we watched 
for his return when we knew he was out for 
a day on the streams. In the fall it was a 
long month or six weeks when he was away 
on his hunting trips in Canada. What noble 
bucks he would bring home. Then one time 
he had better luck than ever and brought some¬ 
thing besides a buck: he brought Lucy. That 
was the best catch old Billy ever made. 
After a time they set up a home on a bluff 
by the Susquehanna River, and everything that 
could be cultivated or tamed grew around 
them. There were gardens and green-houses, 
chickens and ducks, cats and dogs, and some¬ 
times squirrels and coons. Billy was up with 
the sun, hoeing the garden and trimming the 
trees, or if the weather felt just right he would 
go down to the river and get a bass or pike 
before breakfast. Then when he came to the 
store he would be full of talk about what birds 
had nested, how many chickens had hatched, 
or the blossoms on his youngest cherry tree. 
By and by a baby came, and then old Billy’s 
hundred and ninety pounds scarcely touched the 
2 I I 
ground when he walked. These years had 
made us men grown, but we never got out of 
the habit of flocking to the store any more 
than flies forget to swarm around molasses. 
No matter how large we had become, Billy 
never seemed to notice the difference. He 
would slap us on the shoulders hard enough 
to shuck our bones together, or else snatch 
us around as a child does a rag doll. If we 
protested he would say it was good for us to 
get our blood in circulation. He had a friend, 
a doctor, who was often at the store, and the 
doctor was fully his equal in size and strength. 
Occasionally the two of them would get into 
a scuffle, and then the rest of us hunted for 
safe places. It was worse than a fight be¬ 
tween bulls. They both liked it, but did not 
try it very often, for when they had threshed 
around the drug store about two minutes there 
was an appalling shrinkage in the value of the 
merchandise. 
After a time, like a prudent father, Billy de¬ 
cided to deny himself the long hunting trips, 
and told us during the summer that he was 
not going to Canada that season. Lucy made 
no comment, as he announced his intentions, 
but one day when the leaves were falling freely 
she said to him, “Will, 1 have a letter from 
brother John to-day; father and the boys are 
going into the bush next week. Is your equip¬ 
ment in good order?” 
“The equipment is all right,” he replied, “but 
as I told you, I don’t think I better go this 
year. You know we’re getting a little along 
in years and”- 
“Now, none of your nonsense,” she broke 
in. “It’s hunting time, and you’re going. Just 
look over the duffle out in the storeroom and 
lay out any pieces that need mending. When 
you go to the store, take this letter along and 
post it; it’s to John, telling him you will be 
there to start with them.” 
That afternoon as we went into the store we 
saw the familiar preparations going on for a 
long siege with the deer, and asked what it 
meant. 
“I wasn’t going,” Billy explained, “and I 
hadn’t ought to, but Lucy took on so, I’ve got 
to go to please her.” 
But we could see that Lucy was not the only 
one who was pleased. And so it went on, 
year after year. Billy wopld swear off hunting 
and be as set in his determination as a stone¬ 
wall; but when the time came, between Lucy 
pushing and the deer pulling, he always went, 
and always gave the same excuse. 
About the first thing we did when we began 
to plan this trip was to ask Billy to join us, 
if only for a week or two; but he said he 
could not possibly do it. 
“Lucy will be so busy with her green-house 
that she can’t tend store; the garden is com¬ 
ing on, and there is lots of work to do. around 
the house; besides, the girl graduates in June, 
and I can’t get away,” he explained. “Pre¬ 
sume I’d like it down there, but I can’t get 
away; no, I can’t.” 
Every time we brought the subject up we 
received the same reply; but we knew that he 
was not the court of last resort, and we in¬ 
tended to take an appeal. One day, just be¬ 
fore we left Oswenango, I went to Lucy and 
laid the case before her. 
“We have been trying to get Billy started 
on a camping trip down on the Esopus,’ I 
said, “but he thinks he can’t go.” 
“He told me you were going,” she replied, 
“and I expected likely you had asked him; but 
he didn’t say anything to me about it. Prob¬ 
ably he didn’t want me to know that he cared 
to go, but I know that without being told. 
When do you start?” 
“The first of the week,” I replied. 
“How long do you stay?” 
“Oh, a month* or two, according to how 
well we like it.” 
“It’s going to be a pretty busy time for us.” 
she went on, as she made a hasty calculation 
carried out on the ends of her fingers; “but I 
can arrange to tend store a week anyway. 
Will’s been shut up all winter, and needs some 
fishing. You can depend upon him the fourth 
week.” And she shook all over with a good- 
