West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1881-03-09

the woods, and then dig him out.
drown him out, smoke him out or
pull hlm out with a forked stick. He
couldn't see for the life of him why a
1oX ought to be so smart that a good
shrewd boy couldn't catch one. Yet
he had never caught one. In fact
there wasn't a boy in all his ac-
quaintances who ever had, except
ing one of the Lindsay boys, He had
caught one in a trap, but that didn't
prove that the boy was smart. If it
proved anything it only proved that
foxes are not so sly as they have
credit for being.
The summer now referred to had
been for Sam a perpetual round of
fetching the cows, running on en-
rands, carrying wood and water, and
doing things that nobody else would
do. He believed the men in the
fields had formed a conspiracy
against him, and just poured the wa
ter out. If they didn't, how was
1t possible for so few men to drink so
much water? A hundred times he
wished he was steam-engine "a
lightning-express. Then" said
he, II betchee they wouldn't always
be sayin, : "What made you stay so
long ?"
Butthe summer wore out at last,
autumn came, and was now fast
gliding into winter. The buck
wheat was threshed, and Sam had
got the dust of it well out of his nose
and eyes and ears and hair; the po-
tatoes were dug, and he was through
STOPPING over the basket to pick
them up; the turnips were pulled,
and his back was nearly well again /;
and the district school was about to
begin for the winter term.
One night Mr.. Thompson said to
him. "You see, Sam, school begins
next Monday. Now want you to
take charge of the calves and sheep
at the lower barn, and carry in the
wood, and that's all the work you'll
have to do. You can go to school
every day, and | want you to study
hard, for | want to make a scholar
Of you.
This meant, Of course, that Sam
was to learn as much as possible in
the three or four months of the
winter school, and then, Gust make
the dust fly" on the farm the rest of
the year.
The clover barn" stood in Just
such relation to Mr.. Thompson's
house and the school-house, that
Sam could attend to the calves and
sheep on his way from school by
walking a little more than twice
the distance he would have to 90 if
he went directly home first. 1t
was therefore arranged with the
teacher that Sam should be excus-
ed about half an hour before the
school dismissed for the day. This
enabled him to make the trip, at
tend to his charge, and get home
and carry in the wood before dark.
Presently the ground received a
beautiful coat of snow, and the
piercing days Of winter came on.
Sam soon saw that the snow about
the clover barn" was traversed with
little paths, and he discovered that
they were made by rabbits Before
long he found few tracks of some
other kind. He got down on his
hands and knees and examined
them closely. Then he noticed that
they led off in long, graceful line
across the meadow and into the
woods beyond the school-house.
Could they be fox's track? If so,
he was in a fair way to realize the
greatest ambition of his life.
Sam now remembered that, only
a week or two before, Lem Hind
man had said, 81 tracked afox this
morning from our barn, down thro'
the pastur' field, across Rinker's
clearin', up over Greer's hill, and
into the rocks in Loudon's hollow"
"Why didn't you dig him out ?"
some of the boys had asked.
'Dig him out? ?" said Lem. It'd
take more men to dig a fox out of
such place than it took to raise
Christy's barn"
At anyrate, Sam confided to Lem
his suspicious about the tracks,
and, a day or two afterwards, Lem