difficulty in saving her. It was by the hair, with a chance clutch,
that I drew her ashore.

The picture of her, shivering forlornly before the kitchen stove! She
was beautiful, even in her long, wet, red-flannel drawers that came down
to her slim, white ankles. She was weeping over the licking her mother
had given her.

* * * * *

"I'm afraid your cousin Phoebe will come to no good end some day, if she
don't watch out," said my grandmother to me, "and I don't like you to
play with her much.... I'm going to have Aunt Rachel take her home
soon" ... after a pause, "as sure as I have ten fingers she'll grow up
to be a bad woman."

* * * * *

"Granma, what is a bad woman?"

* * * * *

Aunt Rachel and Cousin Phoebe returned home. Uncle Josh, that slack old
vagabond with his furtive, kindly eye-glances, came for them with a
livery rig.

* * * * *

I think I read every dime novel published, during those years of my
childhood ... across the bridge that Elton had helped build, the new
bridge that spanned the Hickory River, and over the railroad tracks,
stood a news-stand, that was run by an old, near-sighted woman. As she
sat tending counter and knitting, I bought her books ... but for each
dime laid down before her, I stole three extra thrillers from under her
very eye.

From my grandfather's library I dug up a book on the Hawaiian Islands,
written by some missionary. In it I found a story of how the natives
speared fish off the edges of reefs. Straightway I procured a pitchfork.

I searched the shallows and ripples of Hickory River for miles ... I
followed Babson's brook over the hills nearly to its source.

One day, peering through reeds into a shallow cove, I saw a fish-fin
thrust up out of the water. I crept cautiously forward.

It was a big fish that lay there. Trembling all over with excitement, I
made a mad thrust. Then I yelled, and stamped on the fish, getting all
wet in doing so. I beat its head in with the haft of the fork. It rolled
over, its white belly glinting in the sun. On picking it up, I was
disappointed. It had been dead for a long time; had probably swam in
there to die ... and its gills were a withered brown-black in colour,
like a desiccated mushroom ... not healthy red.

But I was not to be frustrated of my glory. I tore the tell-tale gills
out ... then I beat the