The only qualm I felt was that I had acted without Addison's consent;
but his first words when I had told him relieved me on that score.
"I'm glad of it!" he said. "We've been in that fox bed long enough. Now
let Willis squirm." And when I told him of the old Squire's arrangement
for our paying off the debt, he said, "That suits me. But we'll make
Willis work!"
We went over to tell Willis that evening. He was, I think, even more
relieved than we were; in the weeks of anxiety that he had passed he had
determined that nothing would ever induce him to use poison again for
trapping animals.
At that time many new telegraph lines were being put up in Maine; and
the old Squire had recently accepted a contract for three thousand cedar
poles, twenty feet long, at the rate of twenty-five cents a pole. Up in
lot "No. 5," near Lurvey's Stream, there was plenty of cedar suitable
for the purpose; the poles could be floated down to the point of
delivery. The old Squire let us furnish a thousand of those poles,
putting in our own labor at cutting and hauling. And in that way we
earned the money to pay for the damage done by our fox pills.
Mr.
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