ept up a comfortable hissing sound as they
dried.

"Howdy, Tom," he said, "howdy?" And from her hiding-place Sheba saw him
rubbing his legs from the knee downwards as he said it, with an air of
solid enjoyment which suggested that he was congratulating himself upon
something he had in his mind.

"Morning," responded Tom.

Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs again quite luxuriously.

"You're a lookin' well, Tom," he remarked. "Lord, yes, ye're a lookin'
powerful well."

Tom laid his paper down and folded it on his knee.

"Lookin' well, am I?" he answered. "Well, I'm a delicate weakly sort of
fellow in general, I am, and it's encouraging to hear that I'm looking
well."

Mr. Stamps laughed rather spasmodically.

"I wouldn't be agin bein' the same kind o' weakly myself," he said, "nor
the same kind o' delycate. You're a powerfle hansum man, Tom."

"Yes," replied Tom, drily, "I'm a handsome man. That's what carried me
along this far. It's what I've always had to rely on--that and a
knock-down intellect."

Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs with his air of luxury again.

"Folks is fond o' sayin' beauty ain't but skin deep," he said; "but I
wouldn't hev it no deeper myself--bein' so that it kivers. An', talkin'
o' beauty, she's one--Lord, yes. She's one."

"Look here," said Tom, "leave her alone."

"'Tain't a gwine to harm her, Tom," replied Mr. Stamps, "'tain't a gwine
to harm her none. What made me think of it was it a bein' jest five years
since she was born--a makin' it her birthday an' her jest five years
old."

"What," cried Tom, "you've been counting it up, have you?"

"No," replied Mr. Stamps, with true modesty of demeanour, "I ain't ben a
countin' of it up, Tom." And he drew a dirty memorandum book softly from
his pocket. "I set it down at the time es it happened."

He laid the dirty book on his knee and turned over its pages carefully as
if looking for some note.

"I ain't much on readin' an' writin'," he said, "an' 'rithmetick it goes
kinder hard with me now an' agin, but a man's got to know suthin' on 'em
if he 'lows to keep anyways even. I 'low to keep even, sorter, an' I've
give a good deal o' time to steddyin' of 'em. I never went to no school,
but I've sot things down es I want to remember, an' I kin count out
money. I never was imposed on none I rekin, an' I never lost nothin'.
Yere's whar I sot it down about her a-bein' born an' the woman a-dyin'
an' him a-gwine away. Ye cayn't read it, mebbe." He bent f