closer, and said softly: "Yes, yes, I know. I ben putty
doubtful an' rebellious myself a good many times, but seems now as if He
had had me in His mercy all the time." Here Aunt Polly's sense of humor
asserted itself. "What's Dave ben up to now?" she asked.

And then the widow told her story, with tears and smiles, and the keen
enjoyment which we all have in talking about ourselves to a sympathetic
listener like Aunt Polly, whose interjections pointed and illuminated
the narrative. When it was finished she leaned forward and kissed Mrs.
Cullom on the cheek.

"I can't tell ye how glad I be for ye," she said; "but if I'd known that
David held that morgidge, I could hev told ye ye needn't hev worried
yourself a mite. He wouldn't never have taken your prop'ty, more'n he'd
rob a hen-roost. But he done the thing his own way--kind o' fetched it
round fer a Merry Chris'mus, didn't he? Curious," she said reflectively,
after a momentary pause, "how he lays up things about his childhood,"
and then, with a searching look at the Widow Cullom, "you didn't let on,
an' I didn't ask ye, but of course you've heard the things that some
folks says of him, an' natchally they got some holt on your mind.
There's that story about 'Lish, over to Whitcom--you heard somethin'
about that, didn't ye?"

"Yes," admitted the widow, "I heard somethin' of it, I s'pose."

"Wa'al," said Mrs. Bixbee, "you never heard the hull story, ner anybody
else really, but I'm goin' to tell it to ye--"

"Yes," said Mrs. Cullom assentingly.

Mrs. Bixbee sat up straight in her chair with her hands on her knees and
an air of one who would see justice done.

"'Lish Harum," she began, "wa'n't only half-brother to Dave. He was
hull-brother to me, though, but notwithstandin' that, I will say that a
meaner boy, a meaner growin' man, an' a meaner man never walked the
earth. He wa'n't satisfied to git the best piece an' the biggist
piece--he hated to hev any one else git anythin' at all. I don't believe
he ever laughed in his life, except over some kind o' suff'rin'--man or
beast--an' what'd tickle him the most was to be the means on't. He took
pertic'ler delight in abusin' an' tormentin' Dave, an' the poor little
critter was jest as 'fraid as death of him, an' good reason. Father was
awful hard, but he didn't go out of his way; but 'Lish never let no
chance slip. Wa'al, I ain't goin' to give you the hull fam'ly hist'ry,
an' I've got to go into the kitchen fer a while 'f