t was not long before I had a little
army of boys at work demolishing that wood pile. The chunks that were
too big and hard to split we placed on the bottom, then placed the split
wood over them. The task was accomplished long before the old
gentleman's return, and when on the night of his arrival I took him out
and showed him that such was the case he looked a bit astonished. He
handed over the watch, though, and for some days afterwards as I
strutted about town with it in my pocket I fancied it was as big as the
town clock and wondered that everybody that I met in my travels did not
stop to ask me the time of day.

It was some time afterwards that my father discovered that the job had
been shirked by me, and paid for with the cakes and cookies taken from
his own larder, but it was then too late to say anything and I guess, if
the truth were known, he chuckled to himself over the manner in which
lie had been outwitted.

The old gentleman seldom became very angry with me, no matter what sort
of a scrape I might have gotten into, and the only time that he really
gave me a good dressing down that I remember was when I had traded
during his absence from home his prize gun for a Llewellyn setter. When
he returned and found what I had done he was as mad as a hornet, but
quieted down after I had told him that he had better go hunting with her
before making so much fuss. This he did and was so pleased with the
dog's behavior that he forgave me for the trick that I had played him.
That the dog was worth more than the gun, the sequel proved.

A man by the name of Dwight who lived down in the bottoms had given his
boy instructions to kill a black-and-tan dog if he found it in the
vicinity of his sheep. The lad, who did not know one dog from another,
killed the setter and then the old gentleman boiled over again. He
demanded pay for the dog, which was refused. Then he sued, and a jury
awarded him damages to the amount of two hundred dollars, all of which
goes to prove that I was even then a pretty good judge of dogs, although
I had not been blessed with a bench show experience.

I may state right here that my father and I were more like a couple of
chums at school together than like father and son. We fished together,
shot together, played ball together, poker together and I regret to say
that we fought together. In the early days I got rather the worst of
these arguments, but later on I managed to hold my own and sometimes to