. Could tell you
the best place to hunt foxes. He knew what they would do and where they
would go. If a wolf had been killed, Davy could give the whole story. If
a bear had carried off a pig or a sheep, Davy would go miles to be one
of the party to follow him up.

It must be admitted that, like many other hunters, Davy had imagination,
and did not allow dull facts to hem him in when he told a hunting story.

Edmund used to take his dinners with his cousin, William Munroe, the
blacksmith, whose house and shop were just below the common. I generally
brought my dinner to school in a basket, and ate it in the school at
noon time. After dinner, we would prowl about and explore. We used to
climb the stone wall of the pound, and look into it, to see what stray
cattle might be there; and wandered down Malt Lane to John Munroe's malt
house and watched him change the barley into malt, and looked at the
hams and sides of bacon that the people had brought to be smoked.

[Sidenote: THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP]

The most interesting place to us was the blacksmith's shop. If an ox was
brought in to be shod, they drove him into a stall and fastened his head
in the stanchions at the end of it. A broad sheet of canvas hung down on
one side of the stall, and they pulled the free end of it under the
belly of the ox, and fastened it by hooks to a windlass on the other
side of the stall, about the height of one's head. William Munroe and
his son Will took a few turns at the windlass, and the ox would be
lifted off his feet. The sides of the stall were only eighteen inches
high, and were of thick plank, with a groove in the top edge. They bent
up the leg of the ox and rested his cloven hoof in the groove, and shod
each part with a piece of iron.

But beside shoeing horses and oxen, the blacksmith made all kinds of
implements, andirons, latches and hinges for doors. They fastened an
iron edge to wooden shovels, and made chains and nails.

CHAPTER II

THEY TRAP MUSKRATS--BISHOP HANCOCK AND HIS GRANDSON JOHN

One day while we were pulling over a lot of old truck in a corner of the
shop, we found some rusty muskrat traps. Edmund asked William if he used
them. "No; I did considerable trapping when I was a boy. You and Ben may
have them if you want them. Your father and I, Benny, trapped together
one winter; and we used to go hunting wild turkeys too. There were a
number of them over at Mt. Gilboa and Turkey Hill. They're pretty much
all