or, so it looked to Jerry Todd. They say a feller that's drowndin'
thinks over all his hull endurin' life when he's goin' down. I
believe it. Sure I do. 'Twarn't twenty feet from the top o' that tree
to the ground, but I even remembered how I stole my sister Jane's rag
baby when I couldn't more'n toddle around marm's shanty--that's
right!--an' berried of it in the hog-pen. Every sin that was
registered to my account come up before me as plain as the wart on
Jim Biggle's nose!"

"Oh, Mr. Todd!" cried Ruth. "Falling right on that awful bear?"

"That's what I was doin', Miss--and it didn't take me long to do it,
neither, I reckon. Mebbe the b'ar warn't no more ready to receive me
than I was to drap down on her. I heard her give a startled _whuff_,
and she come on all four paws. The next thing I done was to land
square on her back--I swanny! that was a crack. Purty nigh drove my
spine up through the top of my head, it did. And the ol' b'ar must ha'
been mighty sorry arterwards that she was right there to receive me.
She give a most awful grunt, shook me off onto the ground and kited
out o' that as though she'd been sent for in a hurry! I swanny! I
never did see a b'ar run so fast," and Long Jerry burst into an
uproarious laugh.

"But that, I reckon, is the time I got so stretched out an' begun to
grow so tall, Miss," he added. "Stretchin' an' strainin' to git away
from that ol' she b'ar was what done it."

Ruth was delighted with the guide; but she was very tired, too, and
when the maids came in she was only too glad to fall in with the
suggestion of bed. She was put to sleep in a great, plainly furnished