“Hello, Bart!” said he.  “It’s to-morrer.”

I sat up.  The delicious odor of frying ham was in the air.  The glow of the morning sunlight was on the meadows.

“Come on, ol’ friend!  By mighty!  We’re goin’ to—­” said Uncle Peabody.

Happy thoughts came rushing into my brain again.  What a tumult!  I leaped out of bed.

“I’ll be ready in a minute, Uncle Peabody,” I said as, yawning, I drew on my trousers.

“Don’t tear yer socks,” he cautioned as I lost patience with their unsympathetic behavior.

He helped me with my boots, which were rather tight, and I flew down-stairs with my coat half on and ran for the wash-basin just outside the kitchen door.

“Hello, Bart!  If the fish don’t bite to-day they ought to be ashamed o’ themselves,” said Mr. Wright, who stood in the dooryard in an old suit of clothes which belonged to Uncle Peabody.

The sun had just risen over the distant tree-tops and the dew in the meadow grass glowed like a net of silver and the air was chilly.  The chores were done.  Aunt Deel appeared in the open door as I was wiping my face and hands and said in her genial, company voice: 

“Breakfast is ready.”

Aunt Deel never shortened her words when company was there.  Her respect was always properly divided between her guest and the English language.

How delicious were the ham, smoked in our own barrels, and the eggs fried in its fat and the baked potatoes and milk gravy and the buckwheat cakes and maple syrup, and how we ate of them!  Two big pack baskets stood by the window filled with provisions and blankets, and the black bottom of Uncle Peabody’s spider was on the top of one of them, with its handle reaching down into the depths of the basket.  The musket and the powder horn had been taken down from the wall and the former leaned on the window-sill.

“If we see a deer we ain’t goin’ to let him bite us,” said Uncle Peabody.

Aunt Deel kept nudging me under the table and giving me sharp looks to remind me of my manners, for now it seemed as if a time had come when eating was a necessary evil to be got through with as soon as possible.  Even Uncle Peabody tapped his cup lightly with his teaspoon, a familiar signal of his by which he indicated that I was to put on the brakes.

To Aunt Deel men-folks were a careless, irresponsible and mischievous lot who had to be looked after all the time or there was no telling what would happen to them.  She slipped some extra pairs of socks and a bottle of turpentine into the pack basket and told us what we were to do if we got wet feet or sore throats or stomach ache.

Aunt Deel kissed me lightly on the cheek with a look that seemed to say, “There, I’ve done it at last,” and gave me a little poke with her hand (I remember thinking what an extravagant display of affection it was) and many cautions before I got into the wagon with Mr. Wright, and my uncle.  We drove up the hills and I heard little that the men said for my thoughts were busy.  We arrived at the cabin of Bill Seaver that stood on the river bank just above Rainbow Falls.  Bill stood in his dooryard and greeted us with a loud “Hello, there!”