Tom then cut a strong limb from a tree with his pocket-knife. This was quite an undertaking, but in time he cut it through, and trimmed off the smaller branches. The boys tied together the legs of the old wolves and swung them over the pole, which they took upon their shoulders, and started home leading the pups. They arrived home an hour or two before sunset, and found that Liney and Sukey had arranged supper under the elms. The boys scoured their faces and hands with soft soap, for that was the only soap they had, and sat down to supper with cheeks shining, and hair pasted to their heads slick and tight. “When a fellow gets washed up this way, and has his hair combed so slick, it makes him feel like it was Sunday,” said Tom, who was uneasily clean. “Tom, I wouldn’t let people know how seldom I washed my face if I were you,” said Liney, with a slight blush. “They’ll think you clean up only on Sunday.” Tom, however, did not allow Liney’s remarks to interrupt his supper, but continued to make sad havoc among the good things on the log. There was white bread made from wheat flour, so snowy and light that it beat cake “all holler!” the boys “allowed.” Wheat bread was a luxury to the settler folks in those days, for the mill nearest to the Blue River settlement was over on Whitewater, at Brookville, fifty miles away. Wheat and the skins of wild animals were the only products that the farmers could easily turn into cash, so the small crops were too precious to be used daily, and wheat flour bread was used only for special occasions, such as Christmas, or New Year’s, or company dinner. Usually three or four of the farmers joined in a little caravan, and went in their wagons to Brookville twice a year. They would go in the spring with the hides of animals killed during the winter, that being the hunting season, and the hides then taken being of superior quality to those taken at any other time. [Illustration: “THE BOYS TIED TOGETHER THE LEGS OF THE OLD WOLVES AND SWUNG THEM OVER THE POLE ... AND STARTED HOME LEADING THE PUPS.”] Early in the fall they would go again to Brookville, to market their summer crop of wheat. Mr. Fox and a few neighbours had returned from an early trip to market only a day or two before the children’s party at Balser’s home, and had brought with them a few packages of a fine new drink called coffee. That is, it was new to the Western settler, at the time of which I write, milk sweetened with “tree sugar” being the usual table drink. Liney had brought over a small gourdful of coffee as a present to Mrs. Brent, and a pot of the brown beverage had been prepared for the supper under the elms.