from the kitchen with a basin of water, and set to
work bathing Miss Abigail's temples and chafing her hands. I thought
my grandfather rather cruel, as he stood there with a half-smile on his
countenance, complacently watching Miss Abigail's sufferings. When she
was "brought to," the Captain sat down beside her, and, with a lovely
twinkle in his eye, said softly:

"Abigail, my dear, there wasn't any tobacco in that Pipe! It was a new
pipe. I fetched it down for Tom to blow soap-bubbles with."

At these words Kitty Collins hurried away, her features-working
strangely. Several minutes later I came upon her in the scullery with
the greater portion of a crash towel stuffed into her mouth. "Miss
Abygil smelt the terbacca with her oi!" cried Kitty, partially removing
the cloth, and then immediately stopping herself up again.

The Captain's joke furnished us--that is, Kitty and me--with mirth for
many a day; as to Miss Abigail, I think she never wholly pardoned
him. After this, Captain Nutter gradually gave up smoking, which is an
untidy, injurious, disgraceful, and highly pleasant habit.

A boy's life in a secluded New England town in winter does not afford
many points for illustration. Of course he gets his ears or toes
frost-bitten; of course he smashes his sled against another boy's; of
course be bangs his bead on the ice; and he's a lad of no enterprise
whatever, if he doesn't manage to skate into an eel-hole, and be brought
home half drowned. All these things happened to me; but, as they lack
novelty, I pass them over, to tell you about the famous snow-fort which
we built on Slatter's Hill.

Chapter Thirteen--The Snow Fort on Slatter's Hill

The memory of man, even that of the Oldest Inhabitant, runneth not back
to the time when there did not exist a feud between the North End and
the South End boys of Rivermouth.

The origin of the feud is involved in mystery; it is impossible to say
which party was the first aggressor in the far-off anterevolutionary
ages; but the fact remains that the youngsters of those antipodal
sections entertained a mortal hatred for each other, and that this
hatred had been handed down from generation to generation, like Miles
Standish's punch-bowl.

I know not what laws, natural or unnatural, regulated the warmth of the
quarrel; but at some seasons it raged more violently than at others.
This winter both parties were unusually lively and antagonistic.
Great was the wrath of the