n the mind of a child so young. What could
it mean? She had forgotten that she had been teaching him to think, and
didn't know, perhaps, that he who thinks must laugh or die.

After that she let him spend long hours at the spring playing with boys
and girls of his age. He didn't go into the meetings again. But he
enjoyed the season. The watermelons, muskmelons, and ginger cakes were
the best he had ever eaten.

IX

During the Christmas holidays the father got ready for a coon hunt in
which the Boy should see his first battle royal in the world of sport.

Dennis came over and brought four extra dogs, two of his own and two
which he had borrowed for the holidays.

A sudden change came over the spirit of old Boney--short for Napoleon
Bonaparte. He understood the talk about coons as clearly as if he could
speak the English language. He was in a quiver of eager excitement. He
knew from the Boy's talk that he was going, too. He wagged his tail,
pushed his warm nose under his little friend's arm, whining and
trembling while he tried to explain what it meant to strike a coon's
trail in the deep night, chase him over miles of woods and swamps and
field, tree him and fight it out, a battle to the death between dog and
beast!

At two o'clock, before day, his father's voice called and in a jiffy he
was down the ladder, his eyes shining. He had gone to sleep with his
clothes on and lost no time in dressing.

Without delay the start was made. Down the dim pathway to the creek and
then along its banks for two miles, its laughing waters rippling soft
music amid the shadows, or gleaming white and mirror-like in the
starlit open spaces.

In half an hour the stars were obscured by a thin veil of fleecy clouds,
and, striking no trail in the bottoms, they turned to the big tract of
woods on the hills and plunged straight into their depths for two miles.

"Hush!"

Tom suddenly stopped:

Far off to the right came the bark of a dog on the run.

"Ain't that old Boney's voice?" the father asked.

"I don't think so," the Boy answered.

The note of wild savage music was one he had never heard before.

"Yes it was, too," was the emphatic decision. He squared his broad
shoulders and gave the hunter's shout of answer-joy to the dog's call.

Never had the Boy heard such a shout from human lips. It sent shivers
down his spine.

The dog heard and louder came the answering note, a deep tremulous boom
through the woods that meant t