his worry all vanished, and he felt very proud of his new weapon.

The following afternoon they all came together, and more bows were made.
Under Stuart's direction arrow shafts were rounded and smoothed, the
vanes were cut from the quills, and several fair arrows completed before
separating for their homes, where all, even the staid old grandpas and
grandmas, were infected by the enthusiasm of the boy archers, and Indian
stories were told by the kitchen fire.

By Friday night all the six were armed with sassafras bows, and nicely
feathered spruce arrows, with pewter heads, blunt, that they might not
stick into and be lost in the trees. Their quivers were of pasteboard
rolled in glue, upon a tapering form, and their arm-guards of hard thick
leather, securely fastened to their left fore-arms by small straps and
buckles. And when, early Saturday morning, they came together at
Foster's house, never was a more gallant squad of young archers seen.
Stumps, trees, late apples, and one or two wandering mice served as
marks for their ready arrows while waiting for the start.

"Here, you boys! shoot them arrers t'other way. They'll spile more'n
they're wuth," called out the good-natured hired man; and Foster raised
grandma's ire by driving a shaft up to the feathers in a golden pumpkin
she had selected for seed, and placed on the well curb to "sun."

By the time their haversacks were filled with potatoes, bread,
doughnuts, meat, etc., and they had started for the Glen across lots,
shooting as they went, all the family were relieved for the moment, only
to worry the rest of the day lest some unlucky arrow, glancing, should
hurt one of them; and mother's anxiety wasn't relieved when Stuart
wickedly told her how Walter Tyrrel killed King William Rufus with a
glancing arrow from his bow while hunting.

The birds and the squirrels that our boys met that day were treated to
many a close hissing arrow, though not many of them suffered, because of
the boys' lack of skill with the long-bow.

"Sh-h-h! boys," suddenly whispered Foster, as the little band paused for
a moment in a clump of spruces; and springing noiselessly up, his bow
was braced, his arrow fitted, and a stricken bird was fluttering at
their feet in a few seconds. The flutterings of the fallen bird were
more than equalled by those of Foster's heart, as he held the still
quivering crow-blackbird which his arrow had brought from the highest
twig of a tall spruce. Proud an