"If ever I find my little boy _playing with tin soldiers,_ I
shall spank him well. No, that wouldn't be quite fair, would it?
But I shall tell him why he must not do it, and _I shall make
him understand that it's an impossible thing."_

Then the old Pastor comprehended. There was no touch of fever. The
one-legged Hero had come home from the wars completely well and
sound in mind. So the two men sat together in love by the Christmas
fire, and saw the tin soldiers melt away.






SALVAGE POINT




The Hermanns built their house at the very end of the island, five
or six miles from the more or less violently rustic "summer-cottages"
which adorned the hills and bluffs around the native village of
Winterport.

There was a long point running out to the southward at the mouth
of the great bay, rough and rocky for the most part, with little
woods of pointed firs on it, some acres of pasture, and a few
pockets of fertile soil lying between the stony ridges. A yellow
farmhouse, with a red barn beside it, had nestled for near a hundred