such a good appetite for their
brown bread and milk. Oh! I can tell you, Uncle Tim and Miss Kitty
wouldn't have thanked Queen Victoria for the gift of her scepter, they
were so happy.

One day Kitty asked Uncle Tim to let her go huckleberrying. She said
she knew a field where they were "as thick as blades of grass." Uncle
Tim couldn't go with her, because Sam Spike, the blacksmith, was in a
hurry for a pair of boots to be married in, and of course Sam couldn't
wait for all the huckleberries in creation; so Tim staid at home,
humming and singing, and singing and humming, while Kitty tied on her
calico sun-bonnet, slung her basket on her little brown arm, and
trudged off with her dog Jowler.

Jowler was very good company. Kitty and he used to have long
conversations about all sorts of things. Kitty always knew by the way
he wagged his tail whether he agreed with her or not. When any other
dog came up to speak to him, he'd look up into Kitty's little freckled
face, to see if she considered the new dog a proper acquaintance, and
if she shook her head, he'd give him a look out of his eyes, as much as
to say, "It's no use," and trot demurely on after Kitty.

Well, Jowler and she picked a quart of huckleberries, and then Kitty
started for home, Jowler carrying the basket in his mouth part of the
way, when Kitty spied any flowers she wished to pick. When she had
plucked all she wanted she concluded to take a shorter cut home across
the fields, and down on the railroad track. So they trotted on, Kitty
singing the while.

By and by they reached the track. Kitty looked,--there were no cars
coming as far as she could see. To be sure there was a curve in the
road just behind her, (round which the eye couldn't look,) but she
wasn't afraid. Just then Jowler dropped the basket and spilt her
huckleberries. Kitty was _so_ sorry,--but she stooped down to gather
them up, when a train of cars whisked like lightning round the curve on
the road, and poor little Kitty was crushed to death in an instant!

Jowler wasn't killed--faithful Jowler,--he trotted home to Uncle Tim,
who sat singing at his work, and leaped upon him, and whined, and
tugged at his coat, till Uncle Tim threw down the blacksmith's boots
and followed him, for he knew something must be the matter. Perhaps
Kitty had fallen over a stone wall, and lamed her foot--who knew? So
Jowler ran backwards and forwards, barking and whining, till he brought
Uncle Tim to the railroad