The boy returned slowly, Merton following.  “You ain’t said nothin’ to me about goin’ off with that gun,” continued Mr. Jones, severely.

“Well, Merton’s pa said he might go if he wanted to, and I had to go along to show him.”

“That first shot wasn’t exactly straight, my young friend John.  I told Merton that it wasn’t best to put pleasure before business, but that he could go if he would.  I wished to let him choose to do right, instead of making him do right.”

“Oho, that’s how the land lays.  Well, John junior, you can have your choice, too.  You may go right on with your gun, but you know the length and weight of that strap at home.  Now, will you help me? or go after rabbits?”

The boy grinned pleasantly, and replied, “If you had said I couldn’t go, I wouldn’t; but if it’s choosin’ between shootin’ rabbits and a strappin’ afterward—­come along, Merton.”

“Well, go along then,” chuckled his father; “you’ve made your bargain square, and I’ll keep my part of it.”

“Oh, hang the rabbits!  You shan’t have any strapping on my account,” cried Merton; and he carried his gun resolutely to his room and locked the door on it.

John junior quietly went to the old barn, and hid his gun.

“Guess I’ll go with you, pa,” he said, joining us.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Mr. Jones.  “It was a good bargain to back out of.  Come now, let’s all be off as quick as we can.  Neighbor Rollins down the road will join us as we go along.”

“Merton,” I said, “see if there isn’t a barrel of apples in the cellar.  If you find one, you can fill your pockets.”

He soon returned with bulging pockets and a smiling face, feeling that such virtue as he had shown had soon brought reward.  My wife said that while we were gone she and the children would explore the house and plan how to arrange everything.  We started in good spirits.

“Here’s where you thought you was cast away last night,” Mr. Jones remarked, as we passed out of the lane.

The contrast made by a few short hours was indeed wonderful.  Then, in dense obscurity, a tempest had howled and shrieked about us; now, in the unclouded sunshine, a gemmed and sparkling world revealed beauty everywhere.

For a long distance our sleighs made the first tracks, and it seemed almost a pity to sully the purity of the white, drift-covered road.

“What a lot of mud’s hid under this snow!” was John Jones’s prose over the opening vistas.  “What’s more, it will show itself before night.  We can beat all creation at mud in Maizeville, when once we set about it.”

Merton laughed, and munched his apples, but I saw that he was impressed by winter scenery such as he had never looked upon before.  Soon, however, he and John junior were deep in the game question, and I noted that the latter kept a sharp lookout along the roadside.  Before long, while passing a thicket, he shouted, “There’s tracks,” and floundered out into the snow, Merton following.