"Look a-here; that Bear of yours is a whole show by himself, and you're another. Anybody that can play and sing like that can have anything I've got. There's my house and there's my cornfield; help yourselves."
Bo thanked him and said that the corn and the melon already selected would do for the time. To oblige them, however, he would take up a modest collection. He passed his hat and received a silver twenty-five cent piece, a spool of thread with a needle in it, a one-bladed jack-knife and two candy hearts with mottoes on them—these last being from the girls, who blushed and giggled as they contributed. Then he said good-by, and the Todd family showed them a gate that led into the thick woods. As the friends passed out of sight and hearing Bosephus paused and waved his handkerchief to the girls. A little later Horatio turned to him and said, impressively:—
"That is what I call conquering the world, Bosephus. We began a little sooner and more abruptly than I had expected, but it was not badly done, and, all things considered, you did your part very well, Bosephus; very well indeed."
CHAPTER III
HORATIO AND THE DOGS
"Blossom on the bough and bird on the limb—
Old Black Bear sits a-grinning at him;
