Excerpt from Uncle Tom Andy Bill: A Story of Bears and Indian Treasure Children except one (of her you will hear a great deal in these pages) were nieces or nephews and grand-nieces or grand-nephews whose parents, like mine, had died. You may be sure every member of the adopted family worshipped with unquestioning faith at the shrine of the Adopter, as some of Tom Andy Bill's older friends lovingly called him. The mother instinct was so strong in Tom Andy Bill's heart that all his friends regretted he had never married. I remember once hearing two old ladies deplore the fact. One of them said tenderly: Oh, yes, it's too bad. He was the like liest young man I ever knew - so tall and strong and gentle. He was like a Greek statue in form, and like a hero in bravery and truthfulness and all that was good. His hair was dark and curled about the finest head and the handsomest face I ever saw. No, he never married, but he had a sweet heart once yes, yes, you know the story. Sad, wasn't it? So sad. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.