xcept on Sundays
and on the occasions of his excursions to the village--Atkins would rise
from the table, saunter to the door to look at the weather, and then,
without excuse or explanation, start slowly down the road. For the first
hundred yards he sauntered, then the saunter became a brisk walk, and
when he reached the edge of the grove he was hurrying almost at a dog
trot. Sometimes he carried a burden with him, a brown paper parcel
brought from Eastboro, a hammer, a saw, or a coil of rope. Once he
descended to the boathouse at the foot of the bluff by the inlet and
emerged bearing a big bundle of canvas, apparently an old sail; this
he arranged, with some difficulty, on his shoulder and stumbled up the
slope, past the corner of the house and away toward the grove. Brown
watched him wonderingly. Where was he going, and why? What was the
mysterious destination of all these tools and old junk? Where did
Seth spend his afternoons and why, when he returned, did his hands and
clothes smell of tar? The substitute assistant was puzzled, but he asked
no questions. And Seth volunteered no solution of the puzzle.

Yet the solution came, and in an unexpected way. Seth drove to the
village one afternoon and returned with literature, smoking materials
and an announcement. The latter he made during supper.

"I tried to buy that fly paper we wanted today," he observed, as a
preliminary. "Couldn't get none. All out."

"But will have some in very shortly, I presume," suggested the
assistant, who knew the idiosyncrasies of country stores.

"Oh, yes, sartin! Expectin' it every minute. That store's got a
consider'ble sight more expectations in it than it has anything else.
They're always six months ahead of the season or behind it in that
store. When it's so cold that the snow birds get chilblains they'll have
the shelves chuck full of fly paper. Now, when it's hotter than a kittle
of pepper tea, the bulk of their stock is ice picks and mittens. Bah!
However, they're goin' to send the fly paper over when it comes, along
with the dog."

"The dog?" repeated Brown in amazement.

"Yup. That's what I was goin' to tell you--about the dog. I ordered a
dog today. Didn't pay nothin' for him, you understand. Henry G., the
storekeeper, gave him to me. The boy'll fetch him down when he fetches
the fly paper."

"A dog? We're--you're going to keep a dog--here?"

"Sure thing. Why not? Got room enough to keep a whole zoological
menagerie if w