squeeze which Moses gave his burden
emphasized it sufficiently.

For a few minutes neither spoke again, then Monty suddenly asked: "How
many you catch, Un-un-uncle Mose?"

"Enough for breakfast. But I missed ye, sonny, I missed ye. An' I'm real
glad you wasn't killed. As for that t'other one, I declare, I wish't she
hadn't come. 'Peared like Eunice would lose her seventy senses,
a-worryin' lest the child take cold or get hurt or somethin'. And there
she has landed on her feet sound as a cat. Though speakin' of cats, Sir
Philip has had the bout of his life, and he looks pretty peaked to me.
But here we are to home, an' your grandma ain't likely to scold you none
if you just mention to her 'Foxes' Gully.' 'Twas one of the Sturtevant
calves got killed there, the very first off, an' she will remember. As
for me, a respectable hired man, kep' out of my bed like this--why,
sonny! Soon's you get over it I'll teach you a lesson you'll remember!"

So, still grumbling and petting, Moses set his burden down in Madam
Sturtevant's presence, and saw her open her lips to reprove her erring
grandson, then as suddenly close them again and strain the boy to her
heart, while her stately figure shook like an aspen. But Moses knew the
lady's temperament of old, and how her alternate severity and indulgence
had been bad for the child she idolized, and, fearing that severity
might have the upper hand now, when it was least needed, he remained
long enough to mention:

"Nothin' much the matter with the little shaver, Madam, only he fell
down Foxes' Gully, and is--he's sort of tuckered out."

Then he quietly withdrew, and of Montgomery Sturtevant he had no further
glimpse during what he himself termed "a consid'able spell."

As for Katharine, she was sound asleep long before Moses returned from
Madam Sturtevant's. To the anxiety and reproof with which she had been
received, she had, fortunately, but little to say beyond the statement
that, "I went to apologize, and I stayed to--to fish, I guess." The
relief of being safe indoors again was all she realized, just then, and
she submitted to being warmed, blanketed, and dosed with hot sage tea,
with a meek humility that won her pardon.

Indeed, when at last the dark curls rested on the pillow, and the
childish face softened in slumber, she looked so like Aunt Eunice's lost
"little John," that the lady stooped and kissed her for his sake. But
she confided to the faithful Widow Sprigg, who had