The nutting party were very glad to get to bed that night, especially George, who was more foot-sore than he liked to confess.  Before saying good-night, they agreed to rise very early the next morning, to spread their chestnuts in the sun, as Uncle John had told them it would improve their sweetness exceedingly, besides making them better for storing during the winter.  A great change in the weather took place, however, during the night; a cutting north-easterly wind and rain set in, and continued with little intermission for nearly a week.  When bright, clear days returned, the country showed that winter was approaching rapidly.  Uncle John took advantage of a call Dick Watson made at the log-house with his team, to accompany him to Painted Posts to buy glass for the windows.  On their return, Dick stayed a couple of days to help with the job, which was not finished before it was needed, for they had begun to feel the cold very sensibly, notwithstanding the great wood fire they kept up.

* * * * *

The Indian summer—­a delightful week in the beginning of November, when the air is mild and still, and a beautiful blueish mist floats in the atmosphere, through which the landscape is seen as through a veil of gossamer—­had come and gone, and a slight flurry of snow had covered the ground with a white mantle, when one morning a great squealing was heard from the pen in which the pigs were now kept.

“What can be the matter there?” said Mrs. Lee, “they are not fighting, I hope.”

[Illustration]

“I’ll go and see, mother,” said Tom, running out.  A moment after his voice was heard shouting, “a bear! a bear!” and he was seen running towards the prairie, armed with a rail which he had picked up in the yard.  When Mr. Lee and Uncle John rushed after him with their rifles, he was gaining fast on a huge black bear, which had just paid a visit to the hog-pen, and was now trotting off to the woods with a squalling victim.  “Stop, stop, Tom!” cried his father; but Tom was too excited to hear or see anything but the object of his pursuit; he ran on, and soon got near enough to make his rail sound on the bear’s hard head.  But though Tom was a strong, big fellow for his years, he was no match for an American bear, which is not so easily settled, and so Bruin seemed determined to let him know; he immediately dropped the pig with a growl, and erecting himself on his hind legs, prepared to give battle.  Tom tried to keep him off with the rail, but a bear is a good fencer, and a few strokes of his great paws soon left the boy without defence.  The deadly hug of the angry animal seemed unavoidable, when a shot from Uncle John, which sent a bullet through the left eye into the very brain, stretched the bear lifeless on the snow.

“If it hadn’t been for you I should have had a squeeze, uncle!” cried Tom, laughing.

“You’re a thoughtless, foolish boy, Tom!” said his uncle; “who but you, I wonder, would have run after a bear with nothing but a rail!”