“And the fat is first rate to have in the house; it’s as good as lard,” said Sally.
“The worst of it is,” said Joe, “we have it all at once; now we’ve got the meat of two bears, and it will spoil before we can eat half of it; then there are sea-fowl, lobsters, and pigeons, so that everything comes together. We ought to give some of this meat to the neighbors: bears ain’t so plenty down to the village as they are up here in the woods.”
“I’ll go over to Uncle Isaac’s,” said Sally, “and tell him he can send word to some of the neighbors, and to your father’s folks, to come and get some.”
“When the boys go home I will take them down to Captain Rhines’s in the boat, and carry some meat to him and Ben.”
“We’ll help you dress the bear, Joe, and then we must go,” said Charlie: “we can’t stay any longer; we should like to; we’ve had the greatest time that ever was, but we must go now.”
“Don’t want to hear any such talk as that; it’s no kind of use to talk that way here; can’t spare you; we’ve got just as much to do to-day as we can spring to, then fix the pigeon-bed, set the net, make a cage to put them in, dress this bear, and set the dead-fall for another.”
“A pigeon-net? What is that?”
“Why, Charlie,” said John, “don’t you know what a pigeon-net is?”
“No. I thought they shot ’em.”
“How should he know?” said Joe.