r-time."

"Now I'm here I may as well stay," he remarked to his wife. He sat
heavily down in a Turkey-red-covered rocking-chair, quoting facetiously:

"Ef yer never want to be sad and sorry
Just keep away from hurry and worry."

"The Rural says Finn's folks has heard from that young feller was
drownded."

Mrs. Pawket raised a disapproving face from contemplating a small kettle
of Irish stew, remarking, severely: "Much the Rural knows about it.
She's into everybody's business."

Mr. Pawket demurred. "Well, carr'in' the mail and all, she's liable to
sense a good deal. Some says she's always been foreknowledged. 'Twuz the
Rural foretold the blizzit last winter; 'twuz the Rural found out Hank
Jellaby's nephew was married. Wasn't it her knowed all the time who sot
Mullins's barn afire? There's a good many depends on the Rural for
keeping up with things."

Soon the sun was a green glare through the tulip-trees; that meant it
was half past twelve, and the twins raced in. They were hoarse from
intriguing with the echo in the swamp; but as they entered the gate
(careful to swing it the wrong way and squeeze through) they discussed
a tingling problem in mental arithmetic.

"If Mrs. Fenton gave her son two wapples" (snuffle), "and her nephew one
naple" (snuffle), "and two wapples to her son's friend, reservin' one
napple for herself and conservin' four rapples for the household, what
would be the sum of these given napples multiplied by four?"

Reciting this appalling chorus, the twins faced their grandfather, who,
poising his battered sun-hat on his knees, from the depths of his
arm-chair looked proudly, if fearfully, upon them.

"Say, Gramp', kin' you answer it?" demanded the twins.

Standing before him in the kitchen doorway, they mouthed it,
curly-headed, croaking synchronous challenge. They scraped their shoes
on a scraper near the door; one peered furtively under a covered dish on
the table while the other washed hands and face in a tin basin under the
grape-arbor. Together they made strange "snorting" noises of repressed
masculinity as, seizing knife and fork from the pile in the center of
the table, they took seats, elbows on plates, instruments waving in air.

"Kin you answer it?"

Mr. Pawket hedged. He also drew a chair up to the table and, spearing a
slice of bread with his knife, bent bushy brows.

"'Kin I answer it?' Well, that's a nice question. Would yer teacher like
me to answer it? No, he w