It must be admitted that, like many other hunters, Davy had imagination, and did not allow dull facts to hem him in when he told a hunting story. Edmund used to take his dinners with his cousin, William Munroe, the blacksmith, whose house and shop were just below the common. I generally brought my dinner to school in a basket, and ate it in the school at noon time. After dinner, we would prowl about and explore. We used to climb the stone wall of the pound, and look into it, to see what stray cattle might be there; and wandered down Malt Lane to John Munroe's malt house and watched him change the barley into malt, and looked at the hams and sides of bacon that the people had brought to be smoked. [Sidenote: THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP] The most interesting place to us was the blacksmith's shop. If an ox was brought in to be shod, they drove him into a stall and fastened his head in the stanchions at the end of it. A broad sheet of canvas hung down on one side of the stall, and they pulled the free end of it under the belly of the ox, and fastened it by hooks to a windlass on the other side of the stall, about the height of one's head. William Munroe and his son Will took a few turns at the windlass, and the ox would be lifted off his feet. The sides of the stall were only eighteen inches high, and were of thick plank, with a groove in the top edge. They bent up the leg of the ox and rested his cloven hoof in the groove, and shod each part with a piece of iron. But beside shoeing horses and oxen, the blacksmith made all kinds of implements, andirons, latches and hinges for doors. They fastened an iron edge to wooden shovels, and made chains and nails. CHAPTER II THEY TRAP MUSKRATS--BISHOP HANCOCK AND HIS GRANDSON JOHN One day while we were pulling over a lot of old truck in a corner of the shop, we found some rusty muskrat traps. Edmund asked William if he used them. "No; I did considerable trapping when I was a boy. You and Ben may have them if you want them. Your father and I, Benny, trapped together one winter; and we used to go hunting wild turkeys too. There were a number of them over at Mt. Gilboa and Turkey Hill. They're pretty much all gone now. We had lots of fun with these traps, and I hope you boys will." There were fourteen traps. We greased them up and put them in good condition. And one Saturday early in the fall we got Davy to go with us to the great meadows and look the ground over. Davy said, "We must find their paths." When we found one, we looked for the best place to set a trap. "Now, see here. Here's a place where they come out of the water; and they climb up on that old root. Take the axe, Ben, and cut a notch in it a little under the water; and I'll smear the notch with mud so that the rat won't notice it." [Sidenote: TRAPPING MUSKRATS]