Mr. Slade was never so "up and hearty" as was
Oliver that next morning.

Up with the sun he was, and hearty as a young
buck out of a bed of mountain-moss.

"Time to be movin', ain't it?" came Ezra Pollard's
voice, shouting up the unpainted staircase,
"Hank's drawed a bucket out here at the well for ye
to wash in. Needn't worry about no towel. Samanthy's
got one fur ye, but ye kin bring yer comb."

At the sound of Ezra's voice Oliver sprang from
the coarse straw mattress--it had been as eider-down
to his stage-jolted body--pushed open the wooden
blind and peered out. The sun was peeping over the
edge of the Notch and looking with wide eyes into the
saucer-shaped valley in which the cabin stood. The
fogs which at twilight had stolen down to the meadows
and had made a night of it, now startled into life
by the warm rays of the sun, were gathering up their
skirts of shredded mist and tiptoeing back up the
hill-side, looking over their shoulders as they fled.
The fresh smell of the new corn watered by the
night dew and the scent of pine and balsam from the
woods about him, filled the morning air. Songs of
birds were all about, a robin on a fence-post and two
larks high in air, singing as they flew.

Below him, bounding from rock to rock, ran the