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96 they kept the bacon and a certain portion of the eggs that are brought to a general store, and the cooking butter. Old Bob was peeking around the chair leg when I said “Rats,” and in a second he came grunting through the door, trying as best he could, for a dog that had to walk sideways, to be spry. I went to lift up a big empty coffee sack and old Bob dove into it hunting some rats that weren’t there. I thought at the time it was his last rat hunt, but it wasn’t. I pulled up my sack and Bob grunted louder as he rolled to the bottom of it. I turned up my coat collar and outside I found a brick they used to block the warehouse door open with. I put that in with him gently and tied the sack and walked across the wet sidewalks to the big bridge. Silver Creek was about as high as it ever got; saw logs were running thick and few animals besides ducks or beavers could have swam it. I felt uneasy, still I felt that it was enterprise, and that while Bob didn’t know it, I was doing him and the town a favor. So I stood on the first approach of the bridge and swung the heavy sack over the perpendicular bank, next which the main current of the stream ran. I thought I heard