house
alone, 'cept for the time I'm goin' to tell ye
about, when I had a boarder, and a queer one
she was. Plenty o' folks asked me to hire out
with them, or board with them, and I s'pose I
might have married, if I'd been that kind, but
I wasn't. Never could abide the thought of
havin' a man gormineerin' over me, not if he
was the lord o' the land. And I was strong, and
had a cow and some fowls, and altogether I knew
when I was well off; and after a while folks
learned to let me alone. "Queer Ca-iry," they
called me,--in your grandfather's time,
Dolly,--but now it's "Aunt Ca-iry" with the
hull country round, and everybody's very good
to the old woman.

How did I come to have such a funny name? Well,
my father give it to me. He was a great man for
readin', my father was, and there was one book
he couldn't ever let alone, skurcely. 'T was
about the French Revolution, and it told how
the French people tried to git up a republic
like ourn. But they hadn't no sense, seemin'ly,
and some of 'em was no better nor wild beasts,
with their slaughterin', devourin' ways; so
nothin' much came of it in the end 'cept
bloodshed.

Well, it seems they had a way of yellin' round
the streets, and shoutin' and singin', "Ca-ira!
Ca-ira!" Made a song out of it, the book said,
and sang it day in and day out. Father said it
meant "That will go!" or somethin' like that,
though I never could see any meanin' in it
myself. Anyhow, it took Father's fancy greatly,
and when I was born, nothin' would do but I
must be christened Ca-ira. So I was, and so I
stayed; and I don't know as I should have done
any better if I'd been called Susan or Jerusha.
So that's all about the name, and now we'll
come to the story.

One day, when I was about eighteen years old, I
was takin' a walk in the woods with my dog
Bluff. I was very fond o' walkin', and so was
Bluff, and there was woods all about, twice as
much as there is now. It was a fine, clear day,
and we wandered a long way, further from home
than we often went, 'way down by Rollin' Dam
Falls. The stream was full, and the falls wer