, he!--'t he says, 'mind you git the right end,' he says,
an' then we got a couple o' seats, an' the doin's begun."

CHAPTER XX.

The widow was looking at David with shining eyes and devouring his
words. All the years of trouble and sorrow and privation were wiped out,
and she was back in the days of her girlhood. Ah, yes! how well she
remembered him as he looked that very day--so handsome, so splendidly
dressed, so debonair; and how proud she had been to sit by his side that
night, observed and envied of all the village girls.

"I ain't goin' to go over the hull show," proceeded David, "well 's I
remember it. The' didn't nothin' git away from me that afternoon, an'
once I come near to stickin' a piece o' gingerbread into my ear 'stid o'
my mouth. I had my ten-cent piece that Billy P. give me, but he wouldn't
let me buy nothin'; an' when the gingerbread man come along he says,
'Air ye hungry, Dave? (I'd told him my name), air ye hungry?' Wa'al, I
was a growin' boy, an' I was hungry putty much all the time. He bought
two big squares an' gin me one, an' when I'd swallered it, he says,
'Guess you better tackle this one too,' he says, 'I've dined.' I didn't
exac'ly know what 'dined' meant, but--he, he, he, he!--I tackled it,"
and David smacked his lips in memory.

"Wa'al," he went on, "we done the hull programmy--gingerbread,
lemonade--_pink_ lemonade, an' he took some o' that--pop corn, peanuts,
pep'mint candy, cin'mun candy--scat my ----! an' he payin' fer
ev'rythin'--I thought he was jest made o' money! An' I remember how we
talked about all the doin's; the ridin', an' jumpin', an' summersettin',
an' all--fer he'd got all the shyniss out of me for the time--an' once I
looked up at him, an' he looked down at me with that curious look in his
eyes an' put his hand on my shoulder. Wa'al, now, I tell ye, I had a
queer, crinkly feelin' go up an' down my back, an' I like to up an'
cried."

"Dave," said the widow, "I kin see you two as if you was settin' there
front of me. He was alwus like that. Oh, my! Oh, my! David," she added
solemnly, while two tears rolled slowly down her wrinkled face, "we
lived together, husban' an' wife, fer seven year, an' he never give me a
cross word."

"I don't doubt it a mossel," said David simply, leaning over and poking
the fire, which operation kept his face out of her sight and was
prolonged rather unduly. Finally he straightened up and, blowing his
nose as it were a trumpet, sai