"'Ba ba Lammie-noo
Cuddle doon tae mammie.'"
"Wouldn't bears come after him in this place with no door?" asked the boy with a shudder.
"Yes, they would if they were hungry, but Lammie-noo has probably not been here more than a couple of nights, and if the bears have been roaming in some other direction they would not get wind of the fact that there was a nice plump lamb on the old Lonesome Hill farm—— Come up higher, and we'll spy the landscape o'er."
We walked beyond the discolored barn which was shedding its shingles as a pony sheds his hair, and came to a dull old orchard where some quite nice crab apple trees stood knee deep in selfish weeds that were taking the goodness out of the soil.
"Poor patient trees," said Mr. Devering, "every year they give us some fruit for preserving. I've a great mind to build up this place again for some young settler."
"Oh! please do so, Captain," said young Dallas whose sensitive soul was quivering with the loneliness of his surroundings.
"Would you like it?" asked the man keenly.
"I—I don't know," stammered Dallas.
"Let old Mother Nature put her hand on your head, my boy, and listen to what she says; then you'll learn to love all her children, even the trees—I'll renew this offer later."