After much deliberation it was decided that the fawn be tied to a bed-post, while a pen was built for his accommodation near the cabin. This was soon accomplished, and the fawn placed in it. When Tom returned to his work, the day was far gone. He gazed around with regret as he saw that not only was it now too late to finish getting in the crops, but that the chase of the deer, in which he had engaged with so much ardor, had made him no little extra labor. What a task it would be to find all the potatoes, scattered and trampled into the rich earth as they were! and the bundles of corn had been broken from their bindings, and must be gathered together and refastened. To find and carry in the potatoes consumed the time till supper; and then, at his mother's call, he went in depressed and unhappy, and after bringing in the wood for the breakfast fire, and feeding the pigs, he went up the rude ladder to his straw bed on the floor. It was scanty fare that the Jones family had. You could see that by their looks. It is true that they were healthy and strong; but they lacked the fair, plump development that plenty of food of a suitable variety gives to childhood and youth. Of vegetables they were not destitute; potatoes, corn, beans, and pumpkins they had in abundance since fall set in, if not before. Bread, milk, and meat were usually scarce with them. For the latter they depended principally on the father's rifle; but as he was apt to take wide and eccentric tramps over the prairies, there would be long intervals when but little game from his gun made savory the family cooking. Mr. Jones had been away for some days now, and his patient wife had really suffered for food. Vegetables of the same kind, served up pretty much in the same way, with little to give relish to them, a big crying infant the while tugging at her breast, and the house-work to do, it is not strange that while the children, fresh from romping in the bracing prairie air, were favored with a ravenous appetite, she had little. Tom understood all this; for, constituted like her, he, too, felt the deprivations of the table, although in a less degree, and much did he worry about her meagre diet. "Ah," he thought, as he lay down for the night, "when I am away and earning, won't I send the good things to mother!" CHAPTER II. SHOOTING DOUBLE.--A FRONTIER DOCTOR. Tom slept soundly, and notwithstanding he charged his memory to awaken him before daybreak, dawn was brightening the east while he was still in the shadowy land of dreams. The low attic had no window, save a pane of glass nailed over a hole under the eaves; and long the lad might have slumbered on, had not a loud sound suddenly aroused him. "Does it thunder?" he exclaimed, fearing a prairie tempest had arisen to interfere with his cherished project of leaving home.