"I guess we'd better. I'm not much used to chopping."
"Of course not."
"We burn coal in the city."
"No chopping to do. I know how it is. Got your axe? Come on."
All that was very polite; but Corry had less trouble now, in keeping up a feeling of equality with his city cousin. They were nearly of an age; but a city boy of fourteen has seen a great many things that one of the same years, brought up among the northern lakes and mountains, knows nothing about, and Corry had been a little in awe of Porter.
They had tucked their trousers into their boots when they left the house; and now they got their guns out of the sleigh, slung their powder-flasks and shot-pouches over their shoulders, and marched away through the woods.
The two girls looked after them as if they also were hungry for a rabbit-hunt. As for Ponto, that very shaggy and snowy dog was plainly intending to run between every two trees, and through each and every clump of bushes, as if in a desperate state of dread lest he might miss the tracks of some game or other. Sniff, sniff, sniff, everywhere! and twice he actually began to paw the snow before he and his two sportsmen were out of sight from the sleigh.
"Boys can have more fun in the woods than girls," began Susie half regretfully.
"No, they can't, Susie. Just you watch that tree. It'll come down pretty quickly. It'll make the splendidest kind of a crash."
It was good fun to watch that chopping, and see the chips fly. Susie found herself becoming more and more deeply interested, as the wide notches sank farther and farther into the massive trunks of the two trees her uncle and Vosh Stebbins were working on. Vosh chopped for dear life; but, in spite of all he could do, the deacon had his tree down first. It was a tall, noble-looking tree. There were no branches near the ground, but there was a fine broad crown of them away up there where the sun could get at them in summer. It seemed almost a pity to destroy a forest-king like that, but at last it began to totter and lean.