"O Vosh!" suddenly exclaimed Susie. "Corry told us this morning about the bear you killed last winter."
It was cruel to mention such a thing just as Mrs. Stebbins had lifted a kruller, and she began to say,—
"Yes, about that bear. Lavawjer's father"—But she had to pause a moment, and Vosh took it up with,—
"No, Susie, I didn't kill him: I guess it was all three of us. He was chockfull of lead when he rolled over. We weren't twenty feet from him. Deacon Farnham he fired first, and then I did, and Corry; and we all had double-barrelled guns, and we didn't one of us miss. But it was a big bear"—
"Biggest kind," said Corry, "or he never could ha' lifted a fat hog clean out of the pen the way he did."
"I knowed a bear," began Mrs. Stebbins; but aunt Judith interrupted her with,—
"Now, Angeline, do take a slice of mince-pie. It's cold, but sometimes it's better cold than it is when it's warm."
The pie was too much for the memory of that other bear.
The sound of popping corn and cracking nuts had been almost incessant, and the young people had now succeeded in breaking all the ice the fire had left in that sitting-room. They were old acquaintances all around, and were chatting away merrily among themselves, with less and less reference to what might be going forward among the old folk by the table.
Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith seemed to keep right along with their knitting, whatever else they might be doing. It seemed to do itself, a great deal like their breathing. Even the deacon managed to look into the corners of his newspaper while he pared an apple, or talked to Mrs. Stebbins. The light of the great astral-lamp on the table mingled with that from the fireplace in a sort of reddish-golden glow, that flickered over the walls and faces in a way to make every thing and every body wear a warm, contented, cosey look, that was just the right thing for a frosty winter evening.