A BLESSING IN STERN DISGUISE.
Bruno Perry's home was in about as lonely and unattractive a spot as one could well imagine; an unpleasant fact, the force of which nobody felt more keenly than did Bruno himself, for he was of a very sociable disposition and delighted in companionship. But, besides his father and mother, companions he had none, except his half-bred collie, Steeltrap, who had been given that name because of his sharpness, and who recognized no other master than Bruno, to whom he was unflaggingly devoted.
To find the Perry house was no easy task, for it lay away off from the main road on a little road of its own that was hardly better than a wood-path. Donald Perry was a very strange man. He was moody and taciturn by nature, and much given to brooding over real or fancied wrongs. Some years ago he had owned a fine farm not far from Riverton, but owing to a succession of disputes with his neighbours, about boundary-lines and other matters, he had in a fit of anger disposed of his farm and banished himself and his family to the wilderness, where he had purchased for a mere trifle the abandoned clearing of a timber-jobber.
Poor little Bruno, at that time only ten years old, cried bitterly as they turned their backs upon the pleasant home which he had come to love so dearly, and his mother joined her tears with his. But his father was not to be moved from his purpose. He had not much faith in or sympathy for other people's feelings, or "notions," as he contemptuously called them. The only notice he took of his wife and son in the matter was to gruffly bid them "stop blubbering;" and they both knew him too well not to do their best to obey.
That was full five years ago, and in all this time neither Bruno nor his mother had had any other society than their own, except an occasional deer-hunter or wood-ranger who might beg the favour of a night's lodging if he happened to find the farm-house after sundown.
"Oh, mother, are we always to live in this dreadful place?" exclaimed Bruno one day, when he knew his father to be well out of hearing. "I'm sure I'll go clean crazy if I don't get out of it soon. Father will have it that I must learn to run the farm, so as to take hold when he gives up. But I'll never be a backwoods farmer; I'd rather die first!"
"Hush, hush, my boy," said Mrs. Perry, in gentle reproof. "You must not talk that way. You don't mean what you say."
"Yes, I do, mother—mean every word of it," replied Bruno vehemently. "I'll run away if father won't let me go with his consent."
"And what would mother do without the light of her life?" asked Mrs. Perry tenderly, taking her son's curly head in both her hands and giving him a fond kiss on the forehead.
Bruno was silent for a moment, and then exclaimed petulantly,—