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Ebook has 431 lines and 18851 words, and 9 pages

were a pair of bars. While Caleb was mending his whip, he accidentally looked up, and noticed that the bars were down.

"There, Mr. Raymond," said Caleb, talking to himself, as he went on winding his twine round and round the whip-handle; "for once in your life, you have been careless. You have left your bars down. Now we shall have the cattle all let out, unless I go and stop the mischief."

Caleb thought he would go and put the bars up again, as soon as he had tied the ends of his twine; but before he got quite ready, he heard a noise, as of something coming in the lane. He could not see down the lane far, from the place where he sat, for the barn was in the way. But he wondered what could be coming, and he looked towards the bars, and sat waiting for it to appear.

In a moment, the head and horns of a great ox came into view, and, immediately after, the body of the ox himself, walking slowly along towards the bars.

"There now," said Caleb, "there comes Lion, and he'll get away." So he jumped up, and ran towards the ox a few steps, brandishing his whip, and shouting out to drive him back. Old Lion, however, seemed to pay no attention, but came steadily forward, stepping carefully over the ends of the bars, and then, advancing a little way into the yard, began quietly to feed upon the grass. Before Caleb got over his surprise at the entire indifference which old Lion seemed to feel towards him and his whip, he heard the bars rattling again, and looking there, he saw Star, Lion's mate, following on.

"O dear me," said Caleb, "what shall I do? All our oxen are getting away. I'll run and call Raymond."

So he began to shout out "RAYMOND," as loud as he could call; and immediately afterwards, he heard Raymond's voice answering just down the lane and, looking that way, he saw him coming over the bars himself, as if he had been following the oxen along up the lane.

"Raymond, Raymond," he cried out, "come quiet; all your oxen are getting away."

"O, no," said Raymond, quietly, as he was putting up the bars after the oxen, "they cannot get away--I have fastened the outer gate."

Then Caleb looked around and observed that the outer gate was fastened, so that they could not get out of the yard.

"O, very well," said he. "I did not know you were driving them up;" and so he quietly returned to his seat, and went on playing with his whip. Raymond, in the mean time, proceeded to yoke up the cattle.

"Raymond," said Caleb, at length, "where are you going with the cattle?"

"Out into the woods," said Raymond.

"What are you going to do in the woods?" said Caleb.

"I am going to make a piece of fence."

"May I go with you?"

"I don't think you can help me much about the fence," said Raymond.

"I can pull bushes along," said Caleb.

Raymond made no reply, but began to drive the oxen towards a cart that was standing in a corner of the yard, and, after a few minutes, Caleb renewed his request.

"Raymond, I wish you would let me go with you."

"Well--it is just as your grandmother says," replied Raymond.

So Caleb ran to ask his grandmother; and she came to the window, and enquired of Raymond how long he expected to be gone. He said it would take him more than half a day to make the piece of fence, and he was going to take his dinner with him. This was an objection to Caleb's going; but yet his grandmother concluded on the whole to consent. So they put up some bread and butter, and some apples, with Raymond's dinner, for Caleb. These things were all put in paper parcels, and the parcels put into a bag, which was thrown into the bottom of the cart.

Then Caleb wanted to take his hatchet.

His grandmother thought it would not be safe.

Raymond smiled, and Madam Rachel seemed at a loss to know what to say.

"It won't do,--will it Raymond?" said she.

"He might cut himself," said Raymond.

"But there is a small key-hole saw in the barn, that I filed up the other day. Perhaps he might have that, to saw the bushes down with."

"Can you saw, Caleb?" said his grandmother.

"Not very well," said Caleb, looking somewhat disappointed; "the saw sticks so."

"I can set it pretty rank," said Raymond, speaking to Madam Rachel at the window, "and then, I think, he can make it run smooth."

"How will that help it, Raymond?"

"Why, then it will cut a wide kerf," said Raymond, "and so the back will follow in easily."

So Raymond went out into the barn, and took down the saw from a nail. The teeth looked bright and sharp.

"Why, Raymond, how sharp it looks. And the teeth are of different shape from what they were before."

"Yes," said Raymond, "I have made a cutting saw of it."

Caleb looked carefully at the teeth, so as to see how the teeth of a cutting saw were shaped. And while he looked on, he observed that Raymond had a little instrument in his hand, and he took hold of the first tooth of the saw with it, and bent it over a little to one side, and then he took hold of the next one, and bent it over to the other side; and so he went on, bending them alternately to the right and left, until he passed along from one end of the saw to the other.

"There," said he, "that is set pretty rank."

"What do you mean by that?" said Caleb, as he followed Raymond out of the barn.

"Why, the teeth are set off, a good way, each side, and it will cut a good wide kerf; and so your saw will run easy."

"Caleb, are you going into the woods?"

"Yes," said Caleb.

"Then, if you see any good, smooth birch bark, won't you bring me home some!"

Raymond got into the cart, and took his seat upon a board which passed across from side to side, and they rode along.

They reached, at length, a place where there was a small cart path leading off from the main road into the woods. Raymond turned off into this path; but it was so narrow that both he and Caleb had sometimes to lean away to one side or the other to avoid the bushes. At length he stopped and unfastened the oxen from the tongue. When all was right he started the oxen on before him, Caleb trotting on behind with his saw in his hand.

Presently they struck off from the cart path directly into the woods, and in a few minutes came to the place where the fence was to be made.

THE FIRE.

Raymond let the cattle browse about, while he went to work, cutting down some small, but yet pretty tall and bushy trees. He then brought up the team, and hooked a long chain into the ring which hung down from the middle of the yoke, upon the under side. The end of the chain trailed upon the ground, as the oxen came along, and Caleb was very much interested to see how they would trample along, any where, among the rocks, roots, mire, logs, bushes, stumps, and, in fact, over and through almost any thing, chewing their cud all the time, patient and unconcerned. When they were brought up near to one of the trees that had been cut down, Raymond would hook the chain around the butt end of it, and then, at his command, they would drag it out of its place in the line of the fence. After looking on for some time, Caleb began to think that he would go to work; and he went to a little tree, with a stem about as big round as his arm, and began to saw away upon it. He found that the saw would run very well indeed; and in a short time, he got the tree off, and then undertook to drag it to the fence.

Raymond was always a very silent man; he seldom spoke, unless to answer a question; and while Caleb had been watching him, when he first began to work, instead of talking with Caleb, as Caleb would have desired, he was all the time singing,

"Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do."

Caleb became tired of this singing; and when, at length, his tree got wedged fast, so that he could not move it any farther, he sat down discouraged upon a log, and looked anxiously towards Raymond, as if he wished that he would come and help him.

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