ever seen--A
journey decided upon--Solution of riddles, conundrums, &c.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE JOURNEY.

Setting out--A long and wearisome ride--Portland--The hotel--Going
to bed--The queer little lamp--Lonesomeness--The evening
prayer--Morning--Breakfast--The railroad depot--Oscar's partiality for
stage-coaches and good horses--Eighty miles by steam--Dinner--The
stage-coach--An outside seat--The team and the roads--Villages--Mail
bags--Forests and rivers--End of the stage ride--Jerry--An
Introduction--A ride in a wagon--Bashfulness--An invisible village--The
journey's end--Mrs. Preston--More shy cousins--Supper--Evening
employments--Attempting to "scrape acquaintance"--Mary tells Oscar his
name--More questions--The tables turned--Getting acquainted in bed.

CHAPTER XV.

BROOKDALE.

A dull morning--New acquaintances--Inquiries about Jerry's school-time--A
long vacation--Work--Playmates--Rain--A fine sunrise--The distant pond--A
call to breakfast--Preliminary operations--Jerry's uncombed head--Oscar's
neatness--Jerry sent from the table--Bad manners--Bathing in the pond--An
anticipated pleasure interdicted--The river--A walk--The pond--Map of
Brookdale--Going to ride--The Cross-Roads--Billy's speed discussed--The
variety store--All sorts of things--Oscar's purchase--Returning
home--Short evenings--A nap--A queer dream--Oscar's smartness at
dreaming--Making fun of a country store--Mary's question--Crying
babies--Teasing--Walking backwards--A trip and a fall--A real crying
baby--Mary comforted--Jerry cuffed--Mortification.

CHAPTER XVI.

IN THE WOODS.

Forgotten medicine and renewed health--An excursion
planned--A gun wanted, but denied--Setting out on a long
tramp--Swamps--Upland--Brooks--How Brookdale got its name--Cutting
canes--Birch and beech--How to crook the handle of a cane--The philosophy
of it explained--The cigars--Fine groves--Stopping to rest--The
forest described--Birds and guns--Other game--Jim Oakley's strange
animal--Moose--The man who met a bear--A race--Mysterious disappearance
of the bear--The probable cause of his visit--The boy who killed two
bears--Oscar's courage--Prospect Rock--A fine view--The rabbit--The
woodchuck's hole--Crossing a swamp--Mosquitoes--The pond--The
hermit's hut--Some account of "Old Staples"--Buried treasures--Making
a fire--Baking potatoes and toasting cheese--Drinking pond
water--Dinner--Hunting for the hermit's money--What they meant to do with
it--A bath propo