nt view you have here," said the colonel;
"magnificent!"

"Yes," was the reply, "we rather enjoy it. I've lived in this
neighborhood all my life, and the longer I live here the better I like
it."

"That's the proper spirit, sir, the proper spirit."

For a moment both men looked off across the snow-mantled valleys and
the wooded slopes, to the summit of the hill-range far to the east,
touched with the soft light of the sinking sun.

"You're quite a stranger in these parts," said Henry Cobb, breaking
the silence.

"Yes," was the reply. "I don't often get up here. I came up to-day to
make an arrangement with your neighbor, Mr. Walker, for the purchase
of a very fine spruce tree on his property."

"So? Did you succeed in closing a bargain with him?"

"Yes. He has consented to let it go."

"You don't say so! I would hardly have believed it. Now, I don't want
to be curious nor anything; but would you mind telling me what you had
to pay for it?"

"Nothing. He gave it to us."

"He--what?"

"He gave it to us to be used as a flag-staff on the grounds of the
public school at Chestnut Hill."

"You don't mean that he gave you that wonderful spruce that stands
down in the corner of his swamp; the one Morrissey and Campbell were
up looking at yesterday?"

"I believe that is the one."

"Why, colonel, that spruce was the apple of his eye. If I've heard him
brag that tree up once, I've heard him brag it up fifty times. He
never gave away anything in his life before. What's come over the old
man, anyway?"

"Well, when he learned that I had donated the flag, he declared that
he would donate the staff. I suppose he didn't want to be outdone in
the matter of patriotism."

"Good for him!" exclaimed Henry Cobb. "He'll be a credit to his
country yet;" and he laughed merrily. Then, sobering down, he added:
"But, say; look here! can't you let me in on this thing too? I don't
want to be outdone by either of you. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll
cut the tree, and trim it, and haul it to town to-morrow, free gratis
for nothing. What do you say?"

Then the colonel laughed in his turn, and he reached out his one hand
and shook hands warmly with Henry Cobb.

"Splendid!" he cried. "This efflorescence of patriotism in the rural
districts is enough to delight an old soldier's heart!"

"All right! I'll have the pole there by four o'clock to-morrow
afternoon, and you can depend on it."

"I will. And I thank you, sir; not only on