"I should think not!" giggled Ruth. "What _did_ you do?"

"Wal, first of all I give her marm's bundle--ya-as I did! I pitched
that there bundle of aperns right at her, and the way she growled an'
tore at 'em was a caution, now I tell ye! I seen at once what she'd
do to me if she got me, so I left them parts, an' left 'em quick! I
started off through the woods, hittin' only the high spots, and
fancied I could beat the old gal runnin'. But not on your tin-type!
No, sir-ree! The old gal jest give a roar, come down on all four
feet, and started after me at a pace that set me a-thinkin' of my sins.

"Jest as sure as you live, if I'd kept on running she'd had me
within thirty yards. An' I knew if I climbed a big tree she'd race me
to the top of it and get me, too. Ye see, a small-round tree was my
only chance. A b'ar climbs by huggin' their paws around the trunk,
and it takes one of right smart size to suit them for climbin',

"I see my tree all right, and I went for it. Missus B'ar, she come
cavortin' an' growlin' along, and it did seem to me as though she'd
have a chunk out o' me afore I could climb out o' reach. It was jest
about then, I reckon," pursued Long Jerry, chuckling again, "when I
believe I began to grow tall!

"I stretched my arms up as fur as I could, an' the way I shinnied up
that sapling was a caution to cats, now I tell ye! She riz up the
minute she got to the tree and tried to scrape me off with both paws.
She missed me by half a fraction of an infinitessimal part of an inch
--that's a good word, that 'infinitessimal'; ain't it, Miss? I got it
off of a college perfesser what come up here, and he said he got it
straight-away out of the dictionary."