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"How in the world shall we get 'um then? We don't own any birds. We've got no money to buy 'um. How shall we get 'um?"

"Then let them alone."

"Yes, and the foxes would steal them then."

"And do you call yourself as mean as a fox?"

"I wish I was half as cunning, by George, wouldn't I have a chicken now and then: golly, I would."

"Well, Jims, you have enough to wear, and enough to eat, now-a-days, I believe."

"All I've got or want to wear, is what you see on me, and we have every day some of Savage's salt beef, that wants pounding on an anvil under a trip hammer, before it can be eaten. The old sow died last week, and we're smoking her shoulders and hams for us now. The Captain says we need good, hearty, substantial food."

All the men laughed heartily at this, but Jims was sober.

"Where you going now, Jims?" inquired Shire.

"Going a fishing," said the boy.

"'Fishing?'"

"Yes, up to the old pond, through the ice."

"What for?"

"For Mr. Boyce -- he that's sick, you know."

"Boyce! sick I and so forth, and so forth," ejaculated Shire. "Who's Boyce, pray?"

"Don't you know Boyce, the great author?"

"Well, if I do, I've forgotten about him. How long's he been there? How old's he?"

"He's been there two or three years, I s'pose. He ain't very old -- not over thirty or fifty, I reckon."

"Oh, well, I don't seem to recollect the dog. He's a state-prison fellow, ain't he?"

"No, he ain't a 'state-prison fellow,' nor a 'dog,' either, you old scamp. He knows as much as a dozen like you, and Mr. Haddock's trying to get him well."

"Just none of your sauce, boy, to me," said Shire, shaking him by the collar, "or I'll give you another flogging that'll make you stand round. Do you hear? I know you of old, you little villain!"

Jims gave a sudden spring as Shire said this; and leaving a portion of his garment in his grasp, fled out of his reach, and catching up a stick or club that lay on the snow, hurled it at him with all the strength of his arm. Shire was obliged to dodge quickly to avoid it; and before he could seize and throw it back, the wild boy had dodged behind a house, and was swiftly bounding away over the fields.

"A vicious, good-for-nothing young devil!" said Shire. "I know him well, and his mother before him."

"Who was she?" inquired Newcombe.

"She was old Tucker's daughter, Annie Sue, who died in the poor-house the year the paupers were in my hands. She was a roving, hard thing, and Jims is just like her. Somebody's his father, but nobody owns him I believe. He's a young villain, any how."

In an hour from this, Jims had reached the frozen pond, and with a hatchet, concealed under his round-about, had cut a hole in the ice large enough to fish. He had borrowed a fish-line of a boy in the neighborhood, and determined to catch some trout for Boyce, and take them to him at Mr. Haddock's.

Long and carefully the boy watched for his wily victims; but at length he caught two or three fine fish, weighing, one of them, more than half a pound; and ere nightfall, he had reached in safety the house of Mr. Haddock.

It is unnecessary to say that poor Boyce rejoiced to see them. Every body admired the trout, and Jims felt a thousand times rewarded for his long, cold tramp and watching to procure them. Jims received something more than thanks, too, and was sent home only after eating a hearty supper, which he devoured with the eagerness of a hungry wolf.

It was past nine o'clock when the boy left Mr. Haddock's. He hurried on towards the poor-house; and as the snow was not deep, took a cross cut that led him close by Captain Bunce's lower barn, filled with hay and grain. Young cattle were in the yard, and a well-beaten path led right from it to the house. Just as the boy was about to turn the corner of the large stone wall and get into the path, he observed a man stealthily creeping through the bars, and then hastily hurrying along the path towards the house of Captain Bunce. The night was not so dark but that Jims could see his precise form and movements. He knew in a moment who the man was; and to avoid him, made a new path for himself to the main road in another direction, through the untrodden snow. As he leaped over the fence into it, he encountered Dan slowly plodding his way homeward, with a bag of cold victuals slung over his shoulder, the proceeds of a day's work of begging.

The two paupers made their way into the poor-house, and raking open the hot ashes in the fire-place, were warming and drying their feet when they were startled with the cry of "Fire!"

This is always, especially in the country, a very exciting, as it is there a somewhat unusual alarm. It awakens from sleep every body in great terror, and all, both men and women, hurry in the greatest trembling to the scene of the conflagration. And when there, they do little besides look on and utter exclamations of surprise and sorrow at the occurrence. The alarming cry of "Fire! fire! fire!" began in the neighborhood of it, soon had its echo and reecho on every side. And away it rolled to the village, and soon the bells of the town took it up, and all Crampton was astir and pell-mell for the locality of the startling scene. Riders in sleighs and on horseback hurried away at fullest speed, crying, as they rode and ran, "fire! fire! fire!" Men and women and boys hurried along on foot, venturing opinions as to where and what the fire was, and how and when it broke out, who caused it, and what the motive was. And in a very short space of time there were four or five hundred people gathered around the burning pile, who could do little else than look on as the flames fiercely consumed the building, reducing it in an incredibly short time with all its contents to ashes.