had at hand the agency for bringing the scheme to fruition.
But yet there remained much of preliminary detail to be worked out. His
plan still was like a fine-toothed comb which has seen hard usage in a
wiry thatch--there were wide gaps between its prongs.

Jeff gave himself over to sustained thought. He made calculations
calendar-wise. This was the first day of August; the eighth, therefore,
was but seven short days removed. This plot of his seemed to resemble a
number of things. It was like a piece of pottery, too. First the plastic
clay must be assembled, then the vessel itself turned from it; finally
the completed product must be given time to harden before it would be
ready for use. He must move fast but warily.

To begin with, now, he must create a setting of plausibility for the
role he meant, in certain quarters, to essay; must dress the character,
as it were, in its correct housings and provide just the right touches
of local color. Ready at hand was Aunt Dilsey; he would make her,
unwittingly so far as she kenned, a supporting member of the cast. She
would never know it, but she would play an accessory part, small but
important, in his prologue.

Five minutes later she lifted her eyebrows in surprise. As he reinserted
himself halfway across the portals of the realm where she queened it his
recent moroseness was quite gone from him. About him now was the
suggestion, subtly conveyed, that here stood one who, after profound
cogitation, had found out what ailed him and, by the finding out, was
filled with a gentle, chastened satisfaction. He seated himself on the
kitchen door-step, facing outward so that comparative safety might be
attained with a single flying leap did her uncertain temper, flaring up
suddenly, lead her to acts of hostility before he succeeded in winning
her over. He uttered a long-drawn sigh, then sat a minute in silence. In
silence, too--a suspicious, menacing silence--she glared at him.

"Aunt Dilsey," he ventured, speaking over his shoulder, with his face
averted from her, "mebbe you been noticin' yere lately I seemed kind of
downcasted an' shiftless, lak ez ef I had a mood on me?"

"Has I noticed it?" she repeated--"huh!" The punctuating grunt was
non-committal. It might mean nothing; it might mean anything.

He cleared his throat and went on,

"An', mebbe--I ain't sayin' you actually is; I's sayin' it with a
mebbe--mebbe you been marvelin' in yore mind whut it wuz w'ich pestered
me a