nt girl, and shook the
wheel." Mr. Tabor illustrated by seizing the lapels of Joe Davey and
shaking him. "I told her if her grandfather had any spunk she'd git an
old-fashioned hidin' for behavin' that way. And I shook the wheel
again." Here Mr. Tabor, forgetting in the wrath incited by the
recollection that he had not to do with an inanimate object, swung the
gasping and helpless Mr. Davey rapidly back and forth in his chair. "I
shook it good and hard!"

"What did she do then?" asked Peter Bradbury.

"Fell off on me," replied Jonas, violently. "On purpose!"

"I wisht she'd killed ye," said Mr. Davey, in a choking voice, as,
released, he sank back in his chair.

"On purpose!" repeated Jonas. "And smashed a straw hat I hadn't had
three months! All to pieces! So it couldn't be fixed!"

"And what then?" pursued Bradbury.

"SHE ran," replied Jonas, bitterly--"ran! And Joe Louden--Joe
Louden--" He paused and gulped.

"What did he do?" Peter leaned forward in his chair eagerly.

The narrator of the outrage gulped again, and opened and shut his mouth
before responding.

"He said if I didn't pay for a broken spoke on his wheel he'd have to
sue me!"

No one inquired if Jonas had paid, and Jonas said no more. The
recollection of his wrongs, together with the illustrative violence
offered to Mr. Davey, had been too much for him. He sank back,
panting, in his chair, his hands fluttering nervously over his heart,
and closed his eyes.

"I wonder why," ruminated Mr. Bradbury--"I wonder why 'Gene Bantry
walked up from the deepo. Don't seem much like his style. Should
think he'd of rode up in a hack."

"Sho!" said Uncle Joe Davey, his breath recovered. "He wanted to walk
up past Judge Pike's, to see if there wasn't a show of Mamie's bein' at
the window, and give her a chance to look at that college uniform and
banjo-box and new walk of his."

Mr. Arp began to show signs of uneasiness.

"I'd like mighty well to know," he said, shifting round in his chair,
"if there's anybody here that's been able to answer the question I PUT,
yesterday, just before we went home. You all tried to, but I didn't
hear anything I could consider anyways near even a fair argument."

"Who tried to?" asked Buckalew, sharply, sitting up straight. "What
question?"

"What proof can you bring me," began Mr. Arp, deliberately, "that we
folks, modernly, ain't more degenerate than the ancient Romans?"

II

A RESCUE

Main St