Part 1 (2/2)

The Stool of Fortune

Once upon a ti up a little cloud of dust at each step--as strapping and ht-eyed a fellow as you would wish to see in a su as he jogged along, though he carried a heavy h the sun shone hot and strong and there was never a tree in sight to give hi's Town and to a great field of stocks and stones, and there sat a little old man as withered and brown as a dead leaf, and clad all in scarlet froood shot?”

”Aye,” said the soldier, ”that isoff your musket for me?”

”Aye,” said the soldier, ”that is my trade also”

”Very well, then,” said the little un instead of a bullet Wait you here, and about sunset there will co In one claw it carries a feather cap and in the other a round stone Shoot ood it will drop the feather cap and the pebble Bring theate and I will pay you a dollar for your trouble”

”Very well,” said the soldier, ”shooting un is a job that fits me like an old coat” So, down he sat and the old man went his way

Well, there he sat and sat and sat and sat until the sun touched the riround, and then, just as the old reat black bird as silent as night The soldier did not tarry to look or to think As the bird flew by up ca the barrel--Puff! bang--!

I vow and declare that if the shot he fired had cracked the sky he could not have been ave a yell so terrible that it curdled the very blood in his veins and made his hair stand upon end Away it flew like a flash--a bird no longer, but a great, black de athered his wits, there lay the feather cap and a little, round, black stone upon the ground

”Well,” said the soldier, ”it is little wonder that the old ame as that” And thereupon he popped the feather cap into one pocket and the round stone into another, and shouldering his ate, and there was the oldfor him

”Did you shoot the bird?” said he

”I did,” said the soldier

”And did you get the cap and the round stone?”

”I did”

”Then here is your dollar”

”Wait a bit,” said the soldier, ”I shot greater gaained for, and so it's ten dollars and not one you shall pay er upon the feather cap and the little stone”

”Very well,” said the old ht the soldier, ”is that the way the wind blows?”--”Did I say ten dollars?” said he; ”twas a hundred dollars I meant”

At that the old reen ”Very well,”

said he, ”if it is a hundred dollars you want, you will have to come home with me, for I have not so much with me” Thereupon he entered the toith the soldier at his heels

Up one street he went and down another, until at last he careat, black, ancient ramshackle house; and that here he lived In he walked without so reat room with furnaces and books and bottles and jars and dust and cobwebs, and three grinning skulls upon the mantelpiece, each with a candle stuck atop of it, and there he left the soldier while he went to get the hundred dollars

The soldier sat hian staring about him; and he liked the looks of the place as little as any he had seen in all of his life, for it srinned at hian to think that the little old man was no better than he should be ”I wish,” says he, at last, ”that instead of being here I ht be well out of my scrape and in a safe place”