As the boy anxiously hastened to the new clearing, the intense stillness of the woods filled him with undefined dread. His ears ached for some sound, the tapping of a woodpecker, the cry of a jay, but most of all, for the sound of axe strokes or his father’s voice. Silence pervaded the clearing also. There, on a stump, was his father’s blue frock, one bit of color in the sombre scene. And yes, there was some slight flitting movement near the last tree that had been felled and lay untrimmed just as it had fallen, but it was only a bevy of chickadees peering curiously at something on the ground beneath them, yet voiceless as if their perennial cheerfulness was dumb in the pervading silence. So sick with dread he could scarcely move, the boy forced himself to approach the spot, and look upon that which he felt was awaiting him, his father lying dead beneath the huge, prone tree, that had crushed him in its fall. The glowing sunset sky and the glistening waters of the lake grew black, the earth reeled. With a piteous groan of “Father! father!” the boy sank down as lifeless, for a space, as the beloved form that lay beside him in eternal sleep. He awoke as from a terrible dream to the miserable realization that it was not a dream. Then walking, as still in a dream, not noting how he went nor by any familiar object marking his way, he bore home the woeful tidings. Simple as were the funeral rites in the primitive communities, they were not lacking in the impressiveness of heartfelt sorrow nor in the homely expressions of sympathy for the bereaved and respect for the dead. So Seth Beeman’s neighbors reverently laid him to rest in the soil his own hand had uncovered to the sunlight. They set at his head a rough slate stone, whose rude lettering could be read half a century later, telling his name and age, and the manner of his death. Ruth was left in a sorry plight, so suddenly bereft of the strong arm she had leaned upon, without a thought that it could ever be taken from her. Now she had only her son, a sturdy lad, indeed, but of an age to be cared for rather than to care for others. Toombs had proved better than he looked, kind enough, and a good worker, and familiar with the needs of the farm. When his time was out she had no means to pay his wages nor could she well get along without him. So he staid on, taking a mortgage, at length, on the premises in lieu of money, and becoming more and more important in Ruth’s estimation, though regarded with increasing dislike and jealousy by her son, who found himself less and less considered.