h fer one anyhow, I reckon. That's about the size on't, ain't it?"

Mrs. Cullom murmured a feeble admission that she was "'fraid it was."

"Wa'al," resumed Mr. Harum, "I see how things was goin', an' I see that
unless I played euchre, 'Zeke Swinney 'd git that prop'ty, an' whether I
wanted it myself or not, I didn't cal'late he sh'd git it anyway. He put
a spoke in my wheel once, an' I hain't forgot it. But that hain't
neither here nor there. Wa'al," after a short pause, "you know I helped
ye pull the thing along on the chance, as ye may say, that you an' your
son 'd somehow make a go on't."

"You ben very kind, so fur," said the widow faintly.

"Don't ye say that, don't ye say that," protested David. "'T wa'n't no
kindness. It was jest bus'nis: I wa'n't takin' no chances, an' I s'pose
I might let the thing run a spell longer if I c'd see any use in't. But
the' ain't, an' so I ast ye to come up this mornin' so 't we c'd settle
the thing up without no fuss, nor trouble, nor lawyer's fees, nor
nothin'. I've got the papers all drawed, an' John--Mr. Lenox--here to
take the acknowlidgments. You hain't no objection to windin' the thing
up this mornin', have ye?"

"I s'pose I'll have to do whatever you say," replied the poor woman in a
tone of hopeless discouragement, "an' I might as well be killed to once,
as to die by inch pieces."

"All right then," said David cheerfully, ignoring her lethal suggestion,
"but before we git down to bus'nis an' signin' papers, an' in order to
set myself in as fair a light 's I can in the matter, I want to tell ye
a little story."

"I hain't no objection 's I know of," acquiesced the widow graciously.

"All right," said David, "I won't preach more 'n about up to the
sixthly--How'd you feel if I was to light up a cigar? I hain't much of a
hand at a yarn, an' if I git stuck, I c'n puff a spell. Thank ye. Wa'al,
Mis' Cullom, you used to know somethin' about my folks. I was raised on
Buxton Hill. The' was nine on us, an' I was the youngest o' the lot. My
father farmed a piece of about forty to fifty acres, an' had a small
shop where he done odd times small jobs of tinkerin' fer the neighbors
when the' was anythin' to do. My mother was his second, an' I was the
only child of that marriage. He married agin when I was about two year
old, an' how I ever got raised 's more 'n I c'n tell ye. My sister Polly
was 'sponsible more 'n any one, I guess, an' the only one o' the whole
lot that ever gin m