e
Professor. "You see he came to us all wet and cold from a tumble into
the creek."

James turned to me with wide-opened eyes. "And I suppose you met a
rattler," he cried.

"Oh, yes," I answered, as though this was but a petty incident of my
day.

"Well, you are a boy!" From me his eyes moved to the bottle again, and
as he looked at it he began to tremble and his legs lost their strength
and he sank to a chair by the table. "You'll be the death of me yet,
Davy. Why, my nerves has all gone from just thinking of what might
have happened."

His hand was groping toward the bottle, and he gave the Professor a
glance that asked for his permission.

"Penelope," the Professor said quietly, "the gentleman would like a
glass of water."

Evidently the gentleman did not think that water would quiet his
nerves, for he did not hear the command and was contented with the
healing power nearer at hand. He poured the tumbler almost full of the
fiery liquid and raised it to his lips. He winked gravely at Mr.
Blight, threw back his head, and drained the glass without taking
breath. The Professor failed to see the humor of the act, and, seizing
the bottle, drove the cork in hard, while the unabashed James beamed on
him, on Penelope, and on me.

"Thank you," he said, rising, and slowly drawing his sleeve across his
mouth; "I feel better--much better. Another drop would set me up all
right, but, as you say--" He looked hopefully from the bottle in the
Professor's hands to the Professor's face, but finding there no promise
of more of the sovereign remedy, he took my arm and led me to the door.
"Davy, you must thank Mr. Blight and the young lady."

"You'll come again, Davy," Penelope cried.

"And all by yourself, Davy," the Professor added.

To me this remark was of the kindest, but it irritated James. He
picked up his whip and fumbled with it while he stared at our host, who
stood by the table, with one hand on the bottle and the other pointing
the way over the clearing. "You're a good talker, Professor," James
drawled. "You can argue down Stacy Shunk and make Mr. Pound tremble,
but when it comes to manners--the manners of a gentleman--I never see
such a lack of them."

With this parting shot he strode away so fast that I could hardly keep
pace with him. At the edge of the woods, I looked back and saw the
father and child in the slanting doorway waving their hands to me.
From his window in the barn the white mule