is stupid daughter and son in
that tiny house, and being happy as a king."

"If there wasn't something wrong with him he wouldn't _be_ happy there,"
insisted Julia.

Mr. Popham himself accounted for his contentment without insulting his
intelligence. "The way I look at it," he said, "this world's all the
world we'll git till we git to the next one; an' we might's well smile
on it, 's frown! You git your piece o' life an' you make what you can of
it;--that's the idee! Now the other day I got some nice soft wood that
was prime for whittlin'; jest the right color an' grain an' all, an' I
started in to make a little statue o' the Duke o' Wellington. Well, when
I got to shapin' him out, I found my piece o' wood wouldn't be long
enough to give him his height; so I says, 'Well, I don't care, I'll cut
the Duke right down and make Napoleon Bonaparte.' I'd 'a' been all right
if I'd cal'lated better, but I cut my block off too short, and I
couldn't make Napoleon nohow; so I says, 'Well, Isaac Watts was an awful
short man, so I guess I'll make him!' But this time my wood split right
in two. Some men would 'a' been discouraged, but I wasn't, not a mite; I
jest said, 'I never did fancy Ike Watts, an' there's one thing this
blamed chip _will_ make, an' that's a button for the barn door!'"

Osh not only whittled and papered and painted, but did anything
whatsoever that needed to be done on the premises. If the pump refused
to draw water, or the sink drain was stopped, or the gutters needed
cleaning, or the grass had to be mowed, he was the man ordained by
Providence and his own versatility to do the work. While he was papering
the front hall the entire Carey family lived on the stairs between
meals, fearful lest they should lose any incident, any anecdote, any
story, any reminiscence that might fall from his lips. Mrs. Carey took
her mending basket and sat in the doorway, within ear shot, while Peter
had all the scraps of paper and a small pasting board on the steps,
where he conducted his private enterprises.

Osh would cut his length of paper, lay it flat on the board, and apply
the wide brush up and down neatly while he began his story. Sometimes if
the tale were long and interesting the paste would dry, but in that case
he went over the surface again. At the precise moment of hanging, the
flow of his eloquence stopped abruptly and his hearers had to wait until
the piece was finished before they learned what finally became of Lyd