Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/299

 disturbed his sail-boat; but when he saw by the marks on the door of the boat-house that somebody had been trying to pull out the staple that held the hasp, he told his chums that he had wronged Tom and his cousins by his suspicions, and that the squatter was the culprit after all. Beyond a doubt Matt wanted to regain possession of the canvas canoe; and in order to save his property, Joe shouldered it one morning and took it up to his room.

The attentive reader, if I am so fortunate as to have one, will bear in mind that all I have thus far written is but a repetition of the story the canvas canoe told me on that bright afternoon when I was first introduced to him and to the other merry fellows—the long bows, the snow-shoes and the toboggan—who found a home in Joe Wayring's room. In concluding his interesting narrative the canoe said:

"Now, Fly-rod, you know every thing of importance that has happened since Tom Bigden and his cousins first stuck their quarrelsome noses inside Mount Airy. As I said at the start, it was necessary that you should hear the story, or else you would be at a loss to