"

"Oh, Doc!" Tillie leaned forward and whispered, "he's up in his room
and perhaps he can hear us through the register!"

"I wisht he KIN," declared Amanda, "if it would learn him how dumm us
folks thinks a feller where spends a whole Sunday afternoon by hisself
READIN'!"

"Why, yes," put in Mrs. Wackernagel; "what would a body be wantin' to
waste time like that fur?--when he could of spent his nice afternoon
settin' there on the porch with us all, conwersin'."

"And he's at it ag'in this evenin', up there in his room," the doctor
informed them. "I went up to give him my lamp, and I'm swanged if he
ain't got a many books and such pamp'lets in his room! As many as ten,
I guess! I tole him: I says, 'It does, now, beat all the way you take
to them books and pamp'lets and things!'"

"It's a pity of him!" said motherly Mrs. Wackernagel.

"And I says to him," added the doctor, "I says, 'You ain't much fur
sociability, are you?' I says."

"Well, I did think, too, Amanda," sympathized her mother, "he'd set up
with you mebbe to-night, seein' Rebecca and Tillie's each got their
gent'man comp'ny--even if he didn't mean it fur really, but only to
pass the time."

"Och, he needn't think I'm dyin' to set up with HIM! There's a plenty
others would be glad to set up with me, if I was one of them that was
fur keepin' comp'ny with just ANYbody! But I did think when I heard he
was goin' to stop here that mebbe he'd be a JOLLY feller that way.
Well," Amanda concluded scathingly, "I'm goin' to tell Lizzie Hershey
she ain't missin' much!"

"What's them pecooliar views of hisn you was goin' to speak to us,
Doc?" said Absalom.

"Och, yes, I was goin' to tell you them. Well, here this after we got
to talkin' about the subjeck of prayer, and I ast him his opinion. And
if I understood right what he meant, why, prayin' is no different to
him than musin'. Leastways, that's the thought I got out of his words."

"Musin'," repeated Absalom. "What's musin'?"

"Yes, what's that ag'in?" asked Mrs. Wackernagel, alert with curiosity,
theological discussions being always of deep interest to her.

"Musin' is settin' by yourself and thinkin' of your learnin',"
explained the doctor. "I've took notice, this long time back, educated
persons they like to set by theirselves, still, and muse."

"And do you say," demanded Absalom, indignantly, "that Teacher he says
it's the same to him as prayin'--this here musin'?"

"So much as I know, that's wh