The chunks that were too big and hard to split we placed on the bottom, then placed the split wood over them.

The task was accomplished long before the old gentleman's return, and when on the night of his arrival I took him out and showed him that such was the case he looked a bit astonished.

He handed over the watch, though, and for some days afterwards as I strutted about town with it in my pocket I fancied it was as big as the town clock and wondered that everybody that I met in my travels did not stop to ask me the time of day.
It was some time afterwards that my father discovered that the job had been shirked by me, and paid for with the cakes and cookies taken from his own larder, but it was then too late to say anything and I guess, if the truth were known, he chuckled to himself over the manner in which lie had been outwitted.
The old gentleman seldom became very angry with me, no matter what sort of a scrape I might have gotten into, and the only time that he really gave me a good dressing down that I remember was when I had traded during his absence from home his prize gun for a Llewellyn setter.

When he returned and found what I had done he was as mad as a hornet, but quieted down after I had told him that he had better go hunting with her before making so much fuss.

This he did and was so pleased with the dog's behavior that he forgave me for the trick that I had played him.
That the dog was worth more than the gun, the sequel proved.
A man by the name of Dwight who lived down in the bottoms had given his boy instructions to kill a black-and-tan dog if he found it in the vicinity of his sheep.