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under the necessity of breaking your head with this shovel."
"
What de matter now, massa?" said Jup, evidently shamed into compliance;
always want for to raise fuss wid old nigger. Was only funnin any how.
"
Me feered de bug! what I keer for de bug?" Here he took cautiously hold
of the extreme end of the string, and, maintaining the insect as far
from his person as circumstances would permit, prepared to ascend the
tree.
In youth, the tulip-tree, or Liriodendron Tulipferum, the most
magnificent of American foresters, has a trunk peculiarly smooth, and
often rises to a great height without lateral branches; but, in its
riper age, the bark becomes gnarled and uneven, while many short limbs
make their appearance on the stem. Thus the difficulty of ascension, in
the present case, lay more in semblance than in reality. Embracing the
huge cylinder, as closely as possible, with his arms and knees, seizing
with his hands some projections, and resting his naked toes upon
others, Jupiter, after one or two narrow escapes from falling, at length
wriggled himself into the first great fork, and seemed to consider the
whole business as virtually accomplished. The risk of the achievement
was, in fact, now over, although the climber was some sixty or seventy
feet from the ground.
"Which way mus go now, Massa Will?" he asked.
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