lot them from existence. He determined thenceforth to "stand up"
for Benjamin, and began to plan some way of making a return for his
manifestation of good feeling.

Ella wanted to carry Benjamin's letter to school, to show to the girls,
but Oscar would not allow it to go out of his hands. She then begged
the privilege of copying it, to which he consented. She did the best
she could, no doubt, but her drawings probably did not quite do justice
to the subjects; for Oscar declared that her copy was more comical than
the original. She lent it to some of her schoolmates, one of whom was
roguish enough to show it to Benjamin himself! He laughed heartily at
the caricature; but thinking it was getting him rather more notoriety
than he wished, he put it in his pocket, and that was the end of it.

In consequence of his many acts of imprudence, Oscar got along very
slowly in his recovery. Yet he was daily growing more impatient of his
long confinement, and the utmost vigilance of his parents was necessary
to restrain him from doing himself harm. During stormy weather, which
was not rare at that season of the year, he was not allowed to go out,
and the time passed heavily with him. One rainy afternoon, as he was
sitting listlessly at a front window, watching for some object of
interest to pass, a coach stopped at the door, and his heart beat high
at the thought of his dulness being dispelled by the arrival of
"company." The driver opened the coach door, and out jumped a stout,
brown-faced man, whom Oscar at once recognized as his uncle, John
Preston, from Maine.

The arrival of Uncle John was soon heralded through the house, and a
warm greeting extended to him. He usually visited the city thrice a
year on business, and on such occasions made his brother's house his
stopping-place. He lived in the town of Brookdale, where he had a
family; but he was engaged in the lumber business, and generally spent
the winter months in the forests of Maine, with large gangs of loggers,
who were employed to cut down trees, and convey them to the banks of
the streams, where they were floated down to the mills in the spring
freshets. These forests are far from any settlement, and the
lumber-men live in log-huts, in a very independent and care-for-nobody
sort of way. Oscar had often heard his uncle describe their manner of
life, and, to him, there was something quite fascinating about it. He
thought he should like the logging business