"
"I wasn't born yesterday," Smith replied, "and I can't afford to
exchange the glory of killing the bear in my own way, and baring three
responsible endorsers, for the honor of shooting a coon. Gentlemen,"
he continued, "I move that that coon be permitted to take his own time
to descend from his perch up in the tree-top there;" and the motion
was carried unanimously.
CHAPTER XXVII.
WOULD I WERE A BOY AGAIN.
"We have played the boy again, yesterday and to-day, pretty well,"
remarked Smith, as we sat in front of oar tents in the evening,
smoking our pipes. "And I am half inclined to think we have started
for home too soon, after all. Spalding's moralizing for the last two
or three days deceived me. I thought, as he was becoming so serious,
he must be getting tired of the woods; but his proposition yesterday
to escort that deer to the shore, and frighten him almost to death,
his jolly humor with our young friends over the way, and the trick he
played on as in regard to the raccoon this evening, satisfies me that
he's got a good deal of the boy in him yet. We shall have to retreat
from the woods slower than I thought, to exhaust it."
"If the cares of business or the duties of life did not call us back
to civilization" said the Doctor, "I could almost spend the summer
among these lakes, only for the luxury of feeling like a boy again.
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