“I put a wire in it, and bent it to suit me.”
“But the head; it is exactly the right shape.”
“Well, I took the head out of the skin, and got the meat all off of it, and put the skull back again, and stuffed in wool enough to fill up between the skull and skin, where I had taken off the flesh.”
On a little shelf by itself, made of apple-tree wood, oiled and polished, and upon which Charlie had evidently bestowed a great deal of labor, was the Bible his mother had given him.
They now opened the drawers. The first one opened was filled with all kinds of boys’ playthings, which Charlie had made himself,—whistles, fifes, and squirt-guns made of elder, and a ball.
“What a neat ball that is,” said Fred, “and how well it is covered! Did you cover it, Charlie?”
“Yes.”
“Will it bounce well?”
“Try it.”
Fred threw it down on the flat stone, when it went way up over his head into the tree.