nstantly screamed Charley, thinking the doctor was now
reproving him for speaking slowly.

"Well, you _are_ scared out of your seven senses, you wretched dunce!"
retorted the doctor, out of temper; and, shaking the lad, he said,
"See if you can tell me now who it is that's killed."

"It's our Tom!"

"And how do _I_ know who your Tom is?" roared the physician. "There's
_my_ Tom;" and he pointed to a monstrous gray cat that sat on an oak
chest watching the boy with green-glaring eyes; "and if he should
mistake you for a thieving gopher some fine morning, and eat you up
alive, small loss would it be to the world, I'm thinking!"

"He's my brother!" timidly interposed Charley, keeping to the
question.

"Your brother! Well, old hunter, what do you say to that?" said the
doctor, stroking his disagreeable pet: "that dirty-faced, uncombed,
ill-dressed ignoramus of a boy claims you for a relative. Do you
realize the honor, eh?"

"I mean that _our_ Tom is my brother," explained Charley, bursting
into tears.

The doctor, softened by his distress, asked more gently,--

"But hasn't your Tom any other name?"

"No, sir," answered the boy.

"Well, what is _your_ name?"

"Charley."

"Charley what?"

"Charley Jones."

"O, I see! you belong to the Jones tribe; not much matter if all their
heads were blown off. But what do you want of me?"

"Mother wants you to come right down quick, and make Tom well."

"What! after his head's blown off? That's a job, anyhow. Nice-looking
young man he'd be--wouldn't he? going round, well as ever, without any
head on his shoulders. But I see how it is: his head isn't all
gone--just a trifle left--enough to grow another with;" and the
doctor, now in good humor, succeeded in drawing from the lad an
intelligible account of the accident, and mounting his horse, with
saddle-bags behind him, and a tin pail in his hand, he proceeded to a
well-to-do settler's, and narrating the accident with nearly as much
exaggeration as did little Charley, he added, with an emphatic jerk of
his collar, "I'll fix the fellow up so that he'll be as good as new."
He then begged some yeast, and a roll of cotton batting, and,
repairing to the Joneses, covered Tom's face with the cotton dipped in
the yeast, and returned to his loggery. Whether the application was in
accordance with the _Materia Medica_ of orthodox practice or not,
after a short time the pain subsided, and Tom dropped into a peaceful
sleep; seeing