a lamb's tail."

Moses came down the stairs and went out "to do his chores," casting
another keen glance at the stranger ascending them with Miss Maitland
to the sitting-room chamber. For the girl's marked resemblance to a boy
he had known and taken fishing many a time, he was inclined to like her;
but because of the probable altered household life, and her swift
perception of his whimsies, equally inclined to dislike; and he shifted
the straw from one side of his mouth to the other, reflecting:

"Well, it's more'n likely she an' Eunice won't gee. Eunice has raised
six seven of her folkses' childern, an' I 'lowed she'd got done; but
there ain't no accountin' for silly women--silly women. Get out, there,
you! Strange that a body can't leave a gate open a single minute here in
Marsden village, without somebody's stray cattle trespassin'. Get out, I
say!"

The plump white cow, which had obtruded its nose through the gateway,
calmly withdrew it and proceeded on its way undisturbed by Moses'
frantic gestures. Miss Maitland's was not the only dooryard in the
village where grass was still abundant, and Whitey knew it.

"That's old Mis' Sturtevant's critter again! She's no right to turn it
loose to feed along the street, that-a-way. Course, she's set Monty to
watch, an' he's gone off a-fishin'. That's as plain as a pike-staff.
Pshaw! Folks so poor they can't feed their stawk hain't a right to keep
any, I declare! When I get to be constable I'll straighten some things
in Marsden township that's terrible crooked now; an' the very first one
I'd complain of or arrest would be that lazy little stutterin' Monty
Sturtevant!"

"W-w-w-wo-would it?"

The voice came from beneath the white lilac bush, but it seemed to come
from the earth, and Katharine, at the just opened sitting-room chamber
window, saw the whole affair, and laughed aloud.

Her laughter startled the intruder as much as he had startled Moses, and
he came out of hiding, demanding:

"W-w-who's t-t-that? Aunt Eu-Eu-Eu-Eunice got comp-p-pany?"

"Yes. But that's no concern of yours," snapped the hired man, "and you
best go 'tend your cow;" finishing his advice with a threatening nod.

"Oh, f-f-f-fudge! Wait till you get to _be_ co-co-constable, then shake
your h-head. W-w-who is it, I say?"

"I hain't been told, but I 'low she's some cousin forty-times-removed to
Eunice, come to sponge a livin' out of us. But she needn't worry you
none. She hain't come to your hou