awled out over the countryside coupled with that of a man who
was a widower of six months with a family of as many children! She
shook her scissors in his face.

"If you don't shut up your tomfoolery, you blatherin' old idiot!" she
cried, in a sort of shrieking whisper, "I'll throw boilin' water over
you!"

Coonie stared in injured righteousness. "Well I never! That's all the
thanks I get for obligin' you. I can't help it if he's gone spooney on
you; next time I bring you a message----"

"Yes, next time you bring me a message it'll be the last you'll take to
a livin' soul. Drive your old hearse away from my door, will you, an'
tell your lies to somebody that's big enough fool to believe you!"

The door slammed and the sewing machine buzzed wrathfully, and Coonie
sent Bella scrambling down the hill, his drooping shoulders heaving
with convulsive laughter. To put 'Liza Cotton into a rage, while Sim
Basketful, in a similar condition, was popping in and out of his store
door like a jack-in-the-box, was worth the whole day's drive. He
meandered along chuckling loudly, but suddenly checked his mirth as he
espied Maggie Hamilton standing at the gate beneath the oaks and
holding a bundle under her arm. This was evidently intended for him,
so he drove to the opposite side of the road and crawled along with
drooping shoulders and abstracted mien.

But this particular Miss Hamilton understood Coonie's dark ways and
knew how to deal with him. She darted across the road and caught old
Bella by the head.

"Hold on now, smarty!" she said. "You needn't pretend you've turned
deaf and blind all at once, you're stupid enough without. Here's a
parcel for Aunt Mary McLean, Coonie, and mother wants you to take it to
her, please, like an old duck. You know Aunt Mary thinks you're the
handsomest fellow in Oro."

But Coonie was not be flattered into obliging anyone. "Look here,
you," he growled, "what d'ye think I run this mail for, anyhow? Think
it's a charitable institution? You tell your Aunt Mary Maria
stick-in-the-mud that if she thinks the Almighty created me to cart
truck over the country for lazy lumps like you that thinks they're too
good to walk, she'd better go an' get informed all over again."

But Maggie had expected this and was prepared. "Jess! Sarah! Bell!"
she cried, "come out here quick and settle this old donkey! He's gone
balky again!"

There was a chorus of shrieks, a swish of skirts down the g