ver
at Mrs. Abel Day's, learning a new crochet stitch and helping her to
start a log-cabin quilt. Ivory and Rodman, she new, were both away in
the Wilson hay-field; no time would ever be more favorable; so instead
of driving up Town-House Hill when she returned to the village she kept
on over the bridge.

XIV. UNCLE BART DISCOURSES

UNCLE BART and Cephas were taking their nooning hour under the Nodhead
apple tree as Waitstill passed the joiner's shop and went over the
bridge.

"Uncle Bart might somehow guess where I am going," she thought, "but
even if he did he would never tell any one."

"Where's Waitstill bound this afternoon, I wonder?" drawled Cephas,
rising to his feet and looking after the departing team. "That reminds
me, I'd better run up to Baxter's and see if any-thing's wanted before I
open the store."

"If it makes any dif'rence," said his father dryly, as he filled his
pipe, "Patty's over to Mis' Day's spendin' the afternoon. Don't s'pose
you want to call on the pig, do you? He's the only one to home."

Cephas made no remark, but gave his trousers a hitch, picked up a chip,
opened his jack-knife, and sitting down on the greensward began idly
whittling the bit of wood into shape.

"I kind o' wish you'd let me make the new ell two-story, father; 't
wouldn't be much work, take it in slack time after hayin'."

"Land o' Liberty! What do you want to do that for, Cephas? You 'bout
pestered the life out o' me gittin' me to build the ell in the first
place, when we didn't need it no more'n a toad does a pocketbook. Then
nothin' would do but you must paint it, though I shan't be able to have
the main house painted for another year, so the old wine an' the
new bottle side by side looks like the Old Driver, an' makes us a
laughin'-stock to the village;--and now you want to change the thing
into a two-story! Never heerd such a crazy idee in my life."

"I want to settle down," insisted Cephas doggedly.

"Well, settle; I'm willin'! I told you that, afore you painted the ell.
Ain't two rooms, fourteen by fourteen, enough for you to settle down in?
If they ain't, I guess your mother'd give you one o' the chambers in the
main part."

"She would if I married Phoebe Day, but I don't want to marry Phoebe,"
argued Cephas. "And mother's gone and made a summer kitchen for herself
out in the ell, a'ready. I bet yer she'll never move out if I should
want to move in on a 'sudden."

"I told you you was takin' th