“Here, Annie,” cried he, “is one of the fellows that make such a grating, knife-grinding sort of noise every night.”

“I thought you said the little tree-toads made it, uncle.”

“The tree-toads and the katydids too.  This is a katydid, or, perhaps, a katydidn’t; for people say they are divided in opinion, and that as soon as one party begins to cry ‘katydid,’ the other shrieks louder still ‘katydidn’t,’ which accounts for the noise they make.”

“Oh, uncle! do they really?” cried George.

“You must listen, Georgy,” replied his uncle, laughing.

“When we first came here” remarked Tom, “mother could not sleep for the noise they and the tree-toads made.”

“The voice of the tree-toad is very loud for so small a creature, but the katydid has really no voice at all.”

“No voice, uncle?”

“No, Annie; the chirp of all kinds of grasshoppers is produced by their thighs rubbing against their wing-cases.”

“How very curious!” exclaimed the children, and the katydid was examined with still greater interest before it was released to rejoin its companions on the sycamore.

* * * * *

“What do you think of our building a boat, Tom?” said his uncle to him, a few days after he had finished the hen-house.  “It seems to me that you and I could manage it.  What do you say?”

“Oh! capital!” cried Tom, with delight; “I’m sure we could! let’s begin to-day!”

“Well, we’ll try at any rate.  When you have driven out the cows, come to me at the fences.”

“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” was Uncle John’s favorite maxim, and certainly he had reason to believe in the truth of it, for he succeeded in everything he undertook.  The boat was no exception:  it was built in a wonderfully short time, and launched one fine day in the presence of the assembled family.  It was not large enough to hold more than two persons safely, but as Uncle John said, if it did well, it would be an encouragement to build another capable of containing the whole household, and then, what pleasant trips they might take!

The two boat-builders rowed several times a couple of miles up and down the river in the course of the week, bringing home, after each excursion, a tolerable supply of cat-fish.  This was an acceptable change in their diet, for, except when Uncle John killed some venison, which had as yet only happened once, or Tom shot squirrels enough to broil a dishfull, their usual dinner was salt pork and hominy.

But a couple of miles up and down did not at all satisfy Tom’s desire of exploration; he wanted to see more of the river, and especially to discover a short cut by water to Mr. Watson’s mill.  Uncle John hesitated to give his consent to going any distance until something more was known of the currents and difficulties of the stream, so the boy determined to go alone.  One day, therefore, when his father