Perkins did not understand this. His interest was suddenly alert. He took his pipe from his mouth, and glanced over his shoulder at Byers. "What air Rufe aimin' at, Andy?" he asked, surprised. Byers did not reply. He still gazed steadfastly at Rufe; the knife lay unheeded on the ground at his feet, and the hide was slipping from the wooden horse. At last he said slowly, "Birt tole ye 'bout'n it, eh?" "Naw, sir! Naw!" Rufe rocked himself fantastically to and fro in imminent peril of toppling off the wood-pile. "'Twar Tom Byers ez tole me." "TOM!" exclaimed Byers, with a galvanic start. For Tom was his son, and he had not suspected filial treachery in the matter of the spectral blackberry bush. Rufe stared in his turn, not comprehending Byers's surprise. "TOM," he reiterated presently, with mocking explicitness. "Tom Byers--I reckon ye knows him. That thar freckled-faced, snaggled- toothed, red-headed Tom Byers, ez lives at yer house. I reckon ye MUS' know him." "Tom tole ye--WHAT?" asked the tanner, puzzled by Byers's grave, anxious face, and Rufe's mysterious sneers. Rufe broke into the liveliest cackle. "Tom, he 'lowed ter me ez he war tucked up in the trundle-bed, fast asleep, that night when his dad got home from old Mis' Price's house, whar he had been ter hear her las' words. Tom, he 'lowed he war dreamin' ez his gran'dad hed gin him a calf--Tom say the calf war spotted red an' white--an' jes' ez he war a-leadin' it home with him, his dad kem racin' inter the house with sech a rumpus ez woke him up, an' he never got the calf along no furder than the turn in the road. An' thar sot his dad in the cheer, declarin' fur true ez he hed seen old Mis' Price's harnt in the woods, an' b'lieved she mus' be dead afore now. An' though thar war a right smart fire on the h'a'th, he war shiverin' an' shakin' over it, jes' the same ez ef he war out at the wood-pile, pickin' up chips on a frosty mornin'." And Rufe crouched over, shivering in every limb, in equally excellent mimicry of a ghost-seer, or an unwilling chip-picker under stress of weather. "My!" he exclaimed with a fresh burst of laughter; "whenst Tom tole me 'bout'n it I war so tickled I war feared I'd fall. I los' the use o' my tongue. I couldn't stop laffin' long enough ter tell Tom what I war laffin' at. An' ez Tom knowed I war snake-bit las' June, he went home an' tole his mother ez the p'ison hed done teched me in the head, an' said he reckoned, ef the truth war knowed, I hed fits ez a constancy. I say--FITS!" Once more the bewildered tanner glanced from one to the other. "Why, ye never tole me ez ye hed seen su'thin' strange in the woods, Andy," he exclaimed, feeling aggrieved, thus balked of a sensation. "An' the old woman ain't dead, nohow," he continued reasonably, "but air strengthenin' up amazin' fast."