a lumberman driving a wedge or working about his mill.

We expected a friendly visit from porcupines that night, as we saw
where they had freshly gnawed all about us; hence, when a red squirrel
came and looked in upon us very early in the morning and awoke us by
his snickering and giggling, my comrade cried out, "There is your
porcupig." How the frisking red rogue seemed to enjoy what he had
found! He looked in at the door and snickered, then in at the window,
then peeked down from between the rafters and cachinnated till his
sides must have ached; then struck an attitude upon the chimney, and
fairly squealed with mirth and ridicule. In fact, he grew so
obstreperous, and so disturbed our repose, that we had to "shoo" him
away with one of our boots. He declared most plainly that he had never
before seen so preposterous a figure as we cut lying there in the
corner of that old shanty.

The morning boded rain, the week to which we had limited ourselves drew
near its close, and we concluded to finish our holiday worthily by a
good square tramp to the railroad station, twenty-three miles distant,
as it proved. Two miles brought us to stumpy fields, and to the house
of the upper inhabitant. They told us there was a short cut across the
mountain, but my soldier shook his head.

"Better twenty miles of Europe," said he, getting Tennyson a little
mixed, "than one of Cathay, or Slide Mountain either."

Drops of the much-needed rain began to come down, and I hesitated in
front of the woodshed.

"Sprinkling weather always comes to some bad end," said Aaron, with a