Therein was the face of Sinth, indescribably gnarled by the lens; a daguerreotype of her grandmother adorned with lace and tokens of a more cheerful time in the family history; faces and forms which for Sinth recalled her play-days, and were gone as hopelessly. Just after supper the night before, Socky had seen his uncle apply grease to a number of boots and guns. The boy had been permitted to put his hands in the thick oil of the bear, and, while its odor irked him a little, it had, as it were, reduced the friction on his bearings. Since then the gear of his imagination had seemed to work easier, and had carried him far towards the goal of manhood. Immediately after waking he found the bottle of bear's-oil and poured some on his own boots and rubbed it in. He was now delighted with the look of them. It was wonderful stuff, that bear's-oil. It made everything look shiny and cheerful, and gave one a grateful sense of high accomplishment. Soon he had greased the bird and the bush, and the oil had dripped on the album and the dingy Testament and the little book entitled _Melinda_. Then he greased the feet and legs of Zeb, who lay asleep in a corner, and who promptly awoke and ran across the floor and leaped through an open window, and hid himself under a boat, as if for proper consideration of ways and means. In a few moments Socky had greased the shoes of his sister, and a ramrod which lay on the window-sill, and taken the latter into bed with him. Soon he began to miss the good Aunt Marie, for, generally, when he first awoke he had gone and got into bed with her. He held to the ramrod and sustained himself with manly reflections, whispering as they came to mind: "I'm going to be a man. I ain't no cry-baby. I'm going to kill bears and send the money to my father, an' my Uncle Silas will give me a rocking-horse an' a silver dofunny--he said he would." He ceased to whisper. An imaginary bear had approached the foot of the bed just in time to save him, for the last of his reflections had been interrupted by little sobs. He struck bravely with the ramrod and felled the bear, and got out of bed and skinned him and hung his hide over the back of a chair. He found some potatoes in a sack beside the fireplace, and put down a row for the bear's body and some more for the feet and legs. Then he greased the bear's feet and got into bed again, for Sue had awoke and begun to cry. "What's the matter?" he inquired. "I want my Aunt Marie," the girl sobbed. "Stop, Uncle Silas 'll hear you," said Socky. "I don't care." "I'd be 'shamed," the boy answered, his own voice trembling with suppressed emotion. Since a talk he had had with his father the day before, he felt a large and expanding sense of responsibility for his sister. Just now an-idea occurred to him--why shouldn't he, in his own person, supply the deficiencies of the great man they had come to see? "I'll be your Uncle Silas," he remarked. "I'm a man now, an' I've killed a bear."