About the first of August a circus pitched its tents in Berlin. Everybody went to the show. While the acrobats were vaulting about in the ring, a lad in a cavalry uniform entered the tent and took a seat not far from where I was sitting. The circus was a tame affair to me after that. A live elephant was nowhere when a boy in blue was around. “Who's that soldier?” I asked my best girl. “That's Henry Tracy; I wish he'd look this way. He's too sweet for anything.” “Where's he from?” “Off the mountain, from the Dutch settlement near the Dyken pond. Isn't he lovely! What a nobby suit!” When the circus was out, I managed to secure an interview with the “bold sojer boy,” who informed me that he was in the same camp with Bass at Troy. “How old are you?” I asked Tracy. “I'm just eighteen,” he answered, with a wink that gave me to understand that I was not to accept the statement as a positive fact. “Do you think they'd take me?” “Certainly; you're more'n eighteen.” “When are you going back?” “Shall start to-night. Think you'll go along?” “Yes; if you really think they'll take me.” “I'm sure they will; you just let me manage the thing for you.” “All right; I'm with you.” I went with Tracy that night--after he had seen his girl home. As we climbed the steep mountain, I expected every minute to hear the footsteps of a brigade of relatives in pursuit. We reached the Tracy domicile about midnight, and went to bed. I could not sleep. The frogs in the pond near the house kept up a loud chorus, led by a bull-frog with a deep bass voice. I had heard the frogs on other occasions when fishing in the mountain lakes, and the boys agreed that the burden of the frog chorus was: You'd better go round! You'd better go round! We'll bite your bait off! We'll bite your bait off! Somehow the chorus seemed that night to have been changed. As I lay there and listened for the sound of my father's wagon, the frogs sang after this fashion: You'd better go home! You'd better go home! They'll shoot your head off! They'll shoot your head off! And, oh! how that old bull-frog with the bass voice came in on the chorus: “They'll shoot your head off!” We got up at daylight, and walked over to the plank road and waited for the stage from Berlin to come along, en route to Troy. When the vehicle came in sight, I hid in the bushes until Tracy could reconnoiter and ascertain if iny father was on board. He gave a signal that the coast was clear, and we took passage for the city. “You're Alex Allen's boy?” the driver--Frank Maxon--said, as we took seats in the stage. “What about it?” “I heard 'em say at the post-office this morning that you'd run away.” “False report,” said Tracy; “he's just going to Troy to bid me good-by.” “Well, he must be struck on you, as they say he never set eyes on you till yesterday.”