198
XVII. FRUITION 204

ILLUSTRATIONS

"I kin kill rabbits if I can't do nothin' else" _Frontispiece_
The Old Greely Mill 70
"Hit's Champ fer his pappy" 142
"Tilda pacing back and forth at her spinning-wheel" 174

THE BOY FROM HOLLOW HUT

I

A STRANGER AND A PROMISE

The rabbit bounded away and was lost in the underbrush. Steve stood
looking disgustedly after him, a limp figure, one shoulder dropping
until the old knit suspender fell at his side, and a sullen,
discouraged look settling in his brown eyes.

"I ain' no hunter noways. Peers lack I don't even know 'nough to ketch
a rabbit," he said with scorn. "Whar's that lazy Tige anyways?" he
added, his scorn merging into wrath.

Then jerking the old suspender in place he straightened up on his
sturdy, bare feet, and darted through the underbrush in the direction
where the rabbit had disappeared.

"I'll ketch you yit, yes I will, you same old cottontail," he muttered
through clenched teeth.

There it was again! Just a moment the round, gray back darted above
the bushes, and then plunging into deeper undergrowth, bounded on and
on. But the slim, knotty brown legs plunged on and on too, till at
last a swift, cruel stone felled the unlucky little woodlander, for
Steve was a most skillful marksman.

"Huh! thought you'd git away from me, did ye?" said the boy, picking
up the still body. "I reckons I kin do some things yit," he said, "ef
I don't know much."

The boy was in a strange, new mood. He did not understand himself.
Though a good hunter for a lad of twelve he had been heretofore a
generous friend or conqueror of the fur and feathered folk, wont to
deal gently with a fallen foe. Now he jerked up the limp body of the
rabbit savagely and struck its head spitefully against a near-by tree
trunk.

"I kin kill rabbits ef I can't do nothin' else."

Just then a big black and tan dog came into view with the dignity
befitting age. Boy and dog had been born the same month, but while one
was scarcely well entered upon life, the other's race was almost run.
The boy was usually most considerate of the infirmities of his
lifelong friend, but to-day he scolded the dog till with drooping tail
and grieved, uncomprehending eyes he slunk away out of sight.

A strange experience had