and where the hammer is sounding in my ears from sun-rise to sun-down. And though I'm much bound to ye both, children; I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true; I crave to go into the woods ag'in, I do."
"Woods!" echoed Elizabeth, trembling with her feelings; "do you not call these endless forests woods?"
"Ah! child, these be nothing to a man that's used to the wilderness. I have took but little comfort sin' your father come on with his settlers; but I wouldn't go far, while the life was in the body that lies under the sod there. But now he's gone, and Chingachgook is gone; and you be both young and happy. Yes! the big-house has rung with merriment this month past! And now, I thought, was the time, to try to get a little comfort, in the close of my days. Woods! indeed! I doesn't call these woods, Madam Effingham, where I lose myself, every day of my life, in the clearings."
"If there be any thing wanting to your comfort," cried Oliver, "name it Leather-stocking; and if it be attainable, it is your's."
"You mean all for the best, lad; I know it; and so does Madam, too; but your ways isn't my ways. 'Tis like the dead there, who thought, when the breath was in them, that one went east and one went west, to find their heavens; but they'll meet at last; and so shall we, children.—Yes, ind as you've begun, and we shall meet in the land of the just, at last."
"This is so new! so unexpected!" said Elizabeth, in almost breathless excitement; "I had thought you meant to live with us, and die with us, Natty."
"Words are of no avail!" exclaimed her husband; "the habits of forty years are not to be
