job, which was not finished before it was needed, for they had begun to
feel the cold very sensibly, notwithstanding the great wood fire they
kept up.

* * * * *

The Indian summer--a delightful week in the beginning of November, when
the air is mild and still, and a beautiful blueish mist floats in the
atmosphere, through which the landscape is seen as through a veil of
gossamer--had come and gone, and a slight flurry of snow had covered the
ground with a white mantle, when one morning a great squealing was heard
from the pen in which the pigs were now kept.

"What can be the matter there?" said Mrs. Lee, "they are not fighting, I
hope."

[Illustration]

"I'll go and see, mother," said Tom, running out. A moment after his
voice was heard shouting, "a bear! a bear!" and he was seen running
towards the prairie, armed with a rail which he had picked up in the
yard. When Mr. Lee and Uncle John rushed after him with their rifles, he
was gaining fast on a huge black bear, which had just paid a visit to
the hog-pen, and was now trotting off to the woods with a squalling
victim. "Stop, stop, Tom!" cried his father; but Tom was too excited to
hear or see anything but the object of his pursuit; he ran on, and soon
got near enough to make his rail sound on the bear's hard head. But
though Tom was a strong, big fellow for his years, he was no match for
an American bear, which is not so easily settled, and so Bruin seemed
determined to let him know; he immediately dropped the pig with a growl,
and erecting himself on his hind legs, prepared to give battle. Tom
tried to keep him off with the rail, but a bear is a good fencer, and a
few strokes of his great paws soon left the boy without defence. The
deadly hug of the angry animal seemed unavoidable, when a shot from
Uncle John, which sent a bullet through the left eye into the very
brain, stretched the bear lifeless on the snow.

"If it hadn't been for you I should have had a squeeze, uncle!" cried
Tom, laughing.

"You're a thoughtless, foolish boy, Tom!" said his uncle; "who but you,
I wonder, would have run after a bear with nothing but a rail!"

"He is indeed a thoughtless boy," said his father, "but I hope a
grateful one; you have most probably saved his life!"

"Uncle knows I am grateful, I'm sure," said Tom, "I needn't tell him!"

"It's a fine beast, and fat as butter," remarked Uncle John, feeling its
sides as he spoke, "yet he must have