"Ain't it a hummer of a day?" Jim exclaimed, suddenly, looking toward
the valley swimming in a silver mist below us. "By Jiminy! it makes a
man feel like livin', don't it?"
I turned to look at him. He, too, seemed to have caught the infection.
His shoulders had straightened, his nostrils were dilated like a deer's
that sniffs some distant scent; his face was aglow. I began to wonder
if, with my usual luck, I had not found the companion I always looked
for in my outings--that rare other fellow of the right kind, who
responds to your slightest wish with all the enthusiasm and gusto of a
boy, and so vagabondish in his tendencies that he is delighted to have
you think for him and to follow your lead.
I had not long to wait. Before we had gone a mile into the forest Jim
jerked the mare back upon her haunches and, pointing to a great hemlock
standing sentinel over us, cried out with boyish enthusiasm:
"Take a look at him once. Ain't he a ring-tailed roarer? Seems to me a
tree big as him must be awful proud just o' bein' a tree.
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