n' he begun to give me the
story of his life. He said he was born in the year 2582, an' had ben
takin' what he called a historical trip into the past ages. He went on
at a great rate like that, an' I thought he was jest wanderin' in his
mind with the fever, so I humored him. But he saw through me, an' he
wouldn't take no but I should go down into Burnham's swamp with him to
see how he'd done it.

"Well, down we went, and right spang in the thickest of the bushes an'
muck we come across the queerest lookin' machine that ever ye see!

"Right there an' then he told me all the scientific talk about time an'
astronomy thet I've told you, an' then he tuck me into the thing. Fust
thing I knew he give a yank to a lever in the machinery an' there was a
big jerk thet near threw me on the back o' my head. I looked out, an'
there we was a-flyin' over the country through the air fer the North
Pole!"

"There, now!" cried Rebecca, "didn't Si Wilkins' boy Sam say he seen a
comet in broad daylight last June?"

"Thet was us," Droop admitted.

"And not a soul believed him," Phoebe remarked.

"Well," continued Droop, "to make a long story short, thet future-man
whirled me a few times 'round the North Pole--unwound jest five weeks o'
time, an' back we come to Peltonville a-hummin'!"

"And then?" cried the two women together.

"Ef you'll believe me, there we was back to the day he fust come--an'
fust thing I knew, thet future-man was a-comin' up to my back door, same
ez before, a-beggin' to hev his foot fixed. It was hard on him, but I
was convinced fer keeps."

Copernicus shook his head sadly, with retrospective sadness.

"An' where is the future-man now?" Phoebe asked.

"Tuk cold on his lungs at the North Pole," said Droop, solemnly. "Hed
pneumonia an' up'n died."

"But there warn't nobody round heerd of him except you," said Rebecca.
"Who buried him?"

"Ah, thet's one o' the beauties o' the hull business. He'd showed me all
the ropes on his machine--his Panchronicon, as he called it--an' so I
up'n flew round the North Pole the opposite way as soon's he passed
away, till I'd made up the five weeks we'd lost. Then when I got back it
was five weeks after his funeral, an' I didn't hev to bother about it."

The two sisters looked at each other, quite overcome with admiration.

"My land!" Rebecca murmured, gathering up her yarn and knitting again.
"Sence they've invented them X-rays an' took to picturin' folks'
insides, I kin