en picked up and carried as usual.

When Jonathan sat upright, after a breathing spell, his eye fell on a tuft
of limp, bruised daisies, flattened to the earth by the heel of his clumsy
shoe. There were acres of others in sight.

"Gosh hang!" he said, catching his breath suddenly, as if something had
stung him, and reaching down with his horny, bent fingers, "ef thet ain't
too bad." Then to himself in a tone barely audible,--he had entirely
forgotten my presence,--"You never had no sense, Jonathan, nohow,
stumblin' raound like er bull calf tramplin' everything. Jes' see what
ye've gone an' done with them big feet er yourn," bending over the bruised
plant and tenderly adjusting the leaves. "Them daisies hez got jest ez
good a right ter live ez you hev."

* * * * *

I was almost sure when I began that I had a story to tell. I had thought
of that one about Luke Pollard,--the day Luke broke his leg behind Loon
Mountain, and Jonathan carried him down the gorge on his back, crossing
ledges that would have scared a goat. It was snowing at the time, they
said, and blowing a gale. When they got half way down White Face,
Jonathan's foot slipped and he fell into the ravine, breaking his wrist.
Only the drifts saved his life. Luke caught a sapling and held on. The
doctor set Jonathan's wrist last, and Luke never knew it had been broken
until the next day. It is one of the stories they tell you around the
stove winter evenings.

"Julluk the night Jonathan carried aout Luke," they say, listening to the
wind howling over the ledges.

And then I thought of that other story that Hank Simons told me,--the one
about the mill back of Woodstock caving in from the freshet and burying
the miller's girl. No one dared lift the timbers until Jonathan crawled
in. The child was pinned down between the beams, and the water rose so
fast they feared the wreckage would sweep the mill. Jonathan clung to the
sills waist-deep in the torrent, crept under the floor timbers, and then
bracing his back held the beam until he dragged her clear. It happened a
good many years ago, but Hank always claimed it had bent Jonathan's back.

But, after all, they are not the things I love best to remember of
Jonathan.

It is always the old man's voice, crooning his tuneless song as he trudges
home in the twilight, his well-filled creel at his side,--the
good-for-nothing dog in his arms; or it is that look of sweet contentment
on hi