reading of 'em, and making of 'em, as like as not, all
their lives. All that you say about his riding the mad colt is just what
I should think he was up to, for he's as spry as a squirrel; you ought to
see him go over that fence, as I did once. I don't believe there's any
harm in that young gentleman,--I don't care what people say. I suppose
he likes this place just as other people like it, and cares more for
walking in the woods and paddling about in the water than he doos for
company; and if he doos, whose business is it, I should like to know?"

The third of the speakers was Miranda, who had her own way of judging
people.

"I never see him but two or three times," Miranda said. "I should like
to have waited on him, and got a chance to look stiddy at him when he was
eatin' his vittles. That 's the time to watch folks, when their jaws get
a-goin' and their eyes are on what's afore 'em. Do you remember that chap
the sheriff come and took away when we kep' tahvern? Eleven year ago it
was, come nex' Thanksgivin' time. A mighty grand gentleman from the City
he set up for. I watched him, and I watched him. Says I, I don't
believe you're no gentleman, says I. He eat with his knife, and that
ain't the way city folks eats. Every time I handed him anything I looked
closeter and closeter. Them whiskers never grooved on them cheeks, says
I to myself. Them 's paper collars, says I. That dimun in your
shirt-front hain't got no life to it, says I. I don't believe it's
nothiri' more 'n a bit o' winderglass. So says I to Pushee, 'You jes'
step out and get the sheriff to come in and take a look at that chap.' I
knowed he was after a fellah. He come right in, an' he goes up to the
chap. 'Why, Bill,' says he, 'I'm mighty glad to see yer. We've had the
hole in the wall you got out of mended, and I want your company to come
and look at the old place,' says he, and he pulls out a couple of
handcuffs and has 'em on his wrists in less than no time, an' off they
goes together! I know one thing about that young gentleman,
anyhow,--there ain't no better judge of what's good eatin' than he is. I
cooked him some maccaroni myself one day, and he sends word to me by that
Mr. Paul, 'Tell Miss Miranda,' says he, I that the Pope o' Rome don't
have no better cooked maccaroni than what she sent up to me yesterday,'
says he. I don' know much about the Pope o' Rome except that he's a
Roman Catholic, and I don' know who cooks for him, whether it's a man or