ir, it's as melancholy as a
hearse-plume, and sympathy ain't the word for it when he looks at the
remains, no sir; preacher nor undertaker, either, ain't _half_ as blue
and respectful. Then take his circus spree. He come into the store this
afternoon, head up, marchin' like a grenadier and shootin' his hand out
before his face and drawin' it back again, and hollering out, 'Ta, ta,
ta-ra-ta, ta, ta-ta-ra'--why, the dumbest man ever lived could see in
a minute show's 'comin' to-morrow and Wilkerson's playin' the trombone.
Then he'd snort and goggle like an elephant. Got the biggest sense of
appropriateness of any man in the county, Wilkerson has. Folks don't
half appreciate him."

As each boarder finished his meal he raided the glass of wooden
toothpicks and went away with no standing on the order of his going;
but Martin waited for Harkless, who, not having attended to business so
concisely as the others, was the last to leave the table, and they stood
for a moment under the awning outside, lighting their cigars.

"Call on the judge, to-night?" asked Martin.

"No," said Harkless. "Why?"

"Didn't you see the lady with Minnie and the judge at the lecture?"

"I caught a glimpse of her. That's what Bowlder meant, then."

"I don't know what Bowlder meant, but I guess you better go out there,
young man. She might not stay here long."

CHAPTER IV. THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER

The Briscoe buckboard rattled along the elastic country-road, the roans
setting a sharp pace as they turned eastward on the pike toward home and
supper.

"They'll make the eight miles in three-quarters of an hour," said the
judge, proudly. He pointed ahead with his whip. "Just beyond that bend
we pass through Six-Cross-Roads."

Miss Sherwood leaned forward eagerly. "Can we see 'Mr. Wimby's' house
from here?"

"No, it's on the other side, nearer town; we pass it later. It's the
only respectable-looking house in this township." They reached the turn
of the road, and the judge touched up his colts to a sharper gait. "No
need of dallying," he observed quietly. "It always makes me a little
sick just to see the place. I'd hate to have a break-down here."

They came in sight of a squalid settlement, built raggedly about a
blacksmith's shop and a saloon. Half-a-dozen shanties clustered near the
forge, a few roofs scattered through the shiftlessly cultivated fields,
four or five barns propped by fence-rails, some sheds with gaping
apertures th