free at last."

Somehow, in the daylight, he was not any longer an owl, but an old man in
gray clothes, who hobbled off down the road.

And Bobby looked after him until he saw the stake-driver, shorn of his
fine clothes, sweep over his head and go flying up the creek again. Then
he turned toward his father's cabin, saying:

"Well, I never! Ef that haint the beatinest thing I ever did see in all
my born'd days."

And I think it was.

MR. BLAKE'S WALKING-STICK.

I.

THE WALKING-STICK WALKS.

Some men carry canes. Some men make the canes carry them. I never could
tell just what Mr. Blake carried his cane for. I am sure it did not often
feel his weight. For he was neither old, nor rich, nor lazy.

He was a tall, straight man, who walked as if he loved to walk, with a
cheerful tread that was good to see. I am sure he didn't carry the cane
for show. It was not one of those little sickly yellow things, that some
men nurse as tenderly as they might a lapdog. It was a great black stick
of solid ebony, with a box-wood head, and I think Mr. Blake carried it
for company. And it had a face, like that of an old man, carved on one
side of the box-wood head. Mr. Blake kept it ringing in a hearty way upon
the pavement as he walked, and the boys would look up from their marbles
when they heard it, and say: "There comes Mr. Blake, the minister!" And I
think that nearly every invalid and poor person in Thornton knew the
cheerful voice of the minister's stout ebony stick.

It was a clear, crisp, sunshiny morning in December. The leaves were all
gone, and the long lines of white frame houses that were hid away in the
thick trees during the summer, showed themselves standing in straight
rows now that the trees were bare. And Purser, Pond & Co.'s great factory
on the brook in the valley below was plainly to be seen, with its long
rows of windows shining and shimmering in the brilliant sun, and its
brick chimney reached up like the Tower of Babel, and poured out a steady
stream of dense, black smoke.

It was just such a shining winter morning. Mr. Blake and his
walking-stick were just starting out for a walk together. "It's a fine
morning," thought the minister, as he shut the parsonage gate. And when
he struck the cane sharply on the stones it answered him cheerily: "It's
a fine morning!" The cane always agreed with Mr. Blake. So they were able