close my eyes and fancy myself squatting on the grassy barn-bridge at James's side when the shadows are creeping over the valley and he weeps for Nellie Grey and Annie Laurie in a voice so mighty that the very hills echo his sorrow. This May morning, as James sang, my spirits rose with his soaring melody from the depths into which they had been cast in the passage of the village, and when the last note had died away and he was debating whether to light his pipe or sing another song, I asked him with quite a show of courage: "Is it very dangerous in the mountains?" James looked down at me. A smile flickered around the corners of his mouth, but he suppressed it quickly. "Yes--and no," he drawled. Inured as I was to his cautious ways, I was not taken aback by this non-committal reply, but pursued my inquiry, hoping that in spite of his vigilance I might elicit some encouraging opinion. "Am I likely to tumble into the water while I'm fishing, James?" "That depends, Davy." James looked profoundly at the sky. "And what's the chance of my being bit by a rattlesnake, James?" "I wouldn't say they was absolutely none, nor yet would I say they was any chance at all." At every word of this sage opinion James wagged his head. We rode some distance in silence, and then I came to the real point of my examination. "James, what kind of a man is a professor?" James looked down at me gravely. "I s'pose, Davy, you have in mind what Stacy Shunk said about him catchin' you." "Oh, dear, no," I protested. "I was just wondering what kind of a man he was." "Well, Davy," James said, in a voice of mockery which silenced as well as encouraged me, "if you can fall into the creek, be bit by a rattler, and catched by the Professor all in the one-half hour we will be in the mountains while I loaden this wagon with wood, I'll give you a medal for being the liveliest young un I ever heard tell of. Mind, Davy, I'll give you a medal." With that he checked further questioning by breaking into a song, and had he once descended from the heights to which he soared and shown any sign that he was aware of my presence, pride would have restrained me from pressing my trembling inquiry.