"Come, Squire, I've heard tell o' that 'ere catamount that you and Zeke Edwards killed; but I never could get the particulars," said Aunt Olive. "Jest give us the particulars."
Gramp tried to put us off. "I'm no great hand at stories," he said. "You must get Hewey Glinds to tell you bear and catamount stories."
"But you promised me, Gramp," Theodora reminded him.
At length, after some further excuses, the Old Squire was induced to make a beginning, and having begun, told us the following story which I give in words as nearly like his own as I can now remember.
"It was in the year 1812. I was little more than a boy at that time, and the country was quite new here. We had a clearing of about fifty acres and had not yet built our present buildings; and our only neighbors, nearer than the settlement in the lower part of the township, where the village now stands, were the Edwardses. Old Jeremy Edwards came here at about the same time that my father came.
"Eighteen-twelve was the time of our second war with England. Soldiers for it did not volunteer then; troops had to be raised by draft. Father and neighbor Edwards were both drafted. I well remember the night they were summoned. Mother and Mrs. Edwards cried all night. But there was no help for it. There were no such things as substitutes then. They had to go the next morning, and leave us to take care of ourselves the best we could.
"Little Ezekiel Edwards—Thomas's and Kate's grandfather—was just about my age; and the men being away, everything depended on us. Those were hard times; we had a great deal to do. We used to change works, as we called it, so as to be together as much as we could; for it was rather lonesome, planting and hoeing off in the stumpy, sprouted clearings. That was a long, anxious summer! We heard from father only once. He was somewhere near Lake Champlain.
"We were getting things fixed up to pass the winter as well as we could, when one night, about the first of November, Ezekiel came running over to ask if we had seen anything of old Brindle, their cow. It had been a bright, Indian-summer day, and they had turned her out to feed; but she had not come up as usual, and was nowhere in sight. It was dusk already, but I took our gun and, starting out together, we searched both clearings. Brindle was not in the cleared land.
"'We shall have to give her up to-night, Zeke,' said I; 'but I will go with you in the morning. She's lost or hedged up somewhere among windfalls.' We heard 'lucivees' snarling, and as we went back along, saw a bear digging ground-nuts beside a great rock. These were common enough sounds and sights in those days; still, we did not care to go off into the forest after dark.
"Several inches of snow came during the night and the next morning was cloudy and lowering. Zeke came over early. Brindle had not come in. He brought his gun and had taken Skip, their dog; and we now started off for a thorough search in the woods. Everything looked very odd that morning, on account of the freshly fallen snow. The snow had lodged upon all the trees, especially the evergreens, bending down the branches; and every stump and bush was wreathed in white.