street. Not till we reached the open sunlit square did my sluggish
blood start again. There I came under the genial influence of Squire
Crumple's radiating smile, and Mr. Pound and his lugubrious warning
were forgotten. The squire was trimming his lilac-bush, and from the
green shrubbery his round face lifted slowly, as the sun rises from its
night's rest in the eastward ridges and spreads its welcome light over
the valley.

"Well, Davy, where are you bound?" he shouted, so pleasantly that I
could well believe my small wanderings of interest to so great a man.

"Fishin'," I answered, drawing myself up to a dignity far above the
chub and sunny--"fishin' for trout."

"Fishin', eh? Well, look out for rattlers." His voice was so cheery
that one might have thought these snakes well worth meeting for their
companionship. "This is the season for 'em, Davy--real rattler season,
and you're sure to see some." To make his warning more impressive, the
squire gave a leap backward which could not have been more sudden or
violent had he heard the dreaded serpent stirring in the heart of his
lilac. "Watch out, Davy; watch sharp, and when you meet 'em be sure to
go backward and sideways like that."

He gave a second extraordinary leap, which was altogether too realistic
to be pleasant for the boy who saw the mountains, sombre and black,
beyond the long street's end, yet very near him. I forced a laugh at
his antics, but I rode on more thoughtfully, my hands clutching the
harness, my eyes fixed on my horse's bobbing mane. I feared to look up
lest I should meet more of these disturbing warnings, and yet enough of
pride still held in me to lift my head at the store. I had always
looked toward the store instinctively when I passed that important
centre of the village life, and now, as always, I saw Stacy Shunk on
the bench.

He was alone, but alone or in the company of half a score, in silence
or in the heat of debate, Stacy had a single attitude, and this was one
of distortion in repose. Now, as always, he was sitting with legs
crossed, his hands hugging a knee, his eyes contemplating his left
foot. In the first warm days of spring, Stacy's feet burst out with
the buds, casting off their husks of leather. So this morning his foot
had a new interest for him, and he was absorbed in the study of it, as
though it were something he had just discovered, a classic fragment
recently unearthed, at the beauty of whose lines he m