ou of a saying in one of George Eliot's novels that
'we've all got to take a little trouble to keep sane and call things by
the same names as other people.' Perhaps Jim doesn't take quite trouble
enough. I have difficulty sometimes myself to find names for things. I
should like to hear you classify a certain occurrence I have in mind,
not unconnected, I think, with Jim's behavior tonight. I've never
discussed it, of course. In fact, I've never spoken of it before." He
smiled queerly. "It's very astonishing how they know things."

"The menials?"

He nodded. "Jim was in the house at the time. No one knows that he heard
it,--no one ever told him. But he is thinking of it tonight just as I
am. He's never forgotten it for a moment, and never will."

Joshua dragged the charred logs forward and stooped amid their sparks to
lay a fresh one with its back to the chimney. Then he rose and looked
out; as he stood in the door, I could hear the hissing of fine snow
turning to rain and the drenched bamboo whipping the piazza posts; over
all, the larger lament of the pines, and, from the long rows of lights
in the gulch, the diapason of the stamp-heads thundering on through the
night.

"'Identities of sensation,'" said Joshua, quoting again as he shut the
door, "are strong with persons who live in lonely places! Jim and I have
lived here too long."

"Well, I hope you won't live here another moment till you have told me
that story," I urged, and we drew again to the fire.

"There was a watchman here before Fahey," he began, "an old plainsman,
with a Bible name, Gideon. He looked like the pictures of old
Ossawattamie Brown, and he had for the Flemings a most unusual regard.
It was as strong as his love for his family. It was because of what
Fleming did for his son, young Gid, when they caught him stealing
specimens with a gang of old offenders. Gid was nineteen, and a pretty
good boy, we thought. Such things happen between men of the right sort
every day, I suppose,--Fleming would say so. But it was his opportunity
to do it for a man who could feel and remember, and he made a friend for
life right there. It is too long a story to tell, but young Gid's all
right--working in the city, married and happy,--trusted like any other
man. It wasn't in the blood, you see.

"Before his boy got into trouble, Fleming used to call the old man
'Gideon,' talked to him any old way; but after his pride fell down it
was always 'Mr. Gideon,' and a f