e from which the sounds of awakening still
emanated. The farmer saw him coming, and ceasing his activities about
the barnyard, leaned across a gate and eyed him, none too hospitably.

"I wanna get something to eat," explained Billy.

"Got any money to pay for it with?" asked the farmer quickly.

"No," said Billy; "but me partner an' me are hungry, an' we gotta eat."

The farmer extended a gnarled forefinger and pointed toward the rear
of the house. Billy looked in the direction thus indicated and espied a
woodpile. He grinned good naturedly.

Without a word he crossed to the corded wood, picked up an ax which was
stuck in a chopping block, and, shedding his coat, went to work. The
farmer resumed his chores. Half an hour later he stopped on his way in
to breakfast and eyed the growing pile that lay beside Billy.

"You don't hev to chop all the wood in the county to get a meal from Jed
Watson," he said.

"I wanna get enough for me partner, too," explained Billy.

"Well, yew've chopped enough fer two meals, son," replied the farmer,
and turning toward the kitchen door, he called: "Here, Maw, fix this boy
up with suthin' t'eat--enough fer a couple of meals fer two on 'em."

As Billy walked away toward his camp, his arms laden with milk, butter,
eggs, a loaf of bread and some cold meat, he grinned rather contentedly.

"A year or so ago," he mused, "I'd a stuck 'em up fer this, an' thought
I was smart. Funny how a feller'll change--an' all fer a skirt. A skirt
that belongs to somebody else now, too. Hell! what's the difference,
anyhow? She'd be glad if she knew, an' it makes me feel better to act
like she'd want. That old farmer guy, now. Who'd ever have taken him fer
havin' a heart at all? Wen I seen him first I thought he'd like to sic
the dog on me, an' there he comes along an' tells 'Maw' to pass me a
hand-out like this! Gee! it's a funny world. She used to say that most
everybody was decent if you went at 'em right, an' I guess she knew.
She knew most everything, anyway. Lord, I wish she'd been born on Grand
Ave., or I on Riverside Drive!"

As Billy walked up to his waiting companion, who had touched a match to
the firewood as he sighted the numerous packages in the forager's arms,
he was repeating, over and over, as though the words held him in the
thrall of fascination: "There ain't no sweet Penelope somewhere that's
longing much for me."

Bridge eyed the packages as Billy deposited them carefully and one a