ff in?"

"No. Why?"

"Nothin' partic'lar," and Uncle Abram backed himself away.

"Well?" queried his passenger, as he started up Daniel Webster with a
professional crack of the whip.

"Ain't to hum."

"Who came to the door?"

"Lady."

"What lady?"

"Dunno."

"Was it his wife?"

"Dunno as 'twas his wife."

His exasperated fare, afterwards tracking down her parent in Boston,
made use of this incident for the slander of her stepmother.

"A nice impression she makes, to be sure! Even that numskull of a
driver doubted whether she was your wife or not."

Giant Bluff came back that evening breathing out threats of slaughter.
Before midnight it was noised all about our village that he had sworn
to shoot Uncle Abram on sight. The old driver was warned by a group of
excited boys who found him serenely smoking over a game of checkers and
were quite unable to interest him in their tidings. But the next day,
when the station platform was well filled with our business men waiting
for the eight o'clock into town, Uncle Abram drove up to the depot and
reined in Daniel Webster just against the spot where Giant Bluff was
standing, a little aloof for the reason that nobody cared to stand with
him.

Taken by surprise as Uncle Abram coolly looked him over, Giant Bluff,
unexpectedly to himself, said:

"Good morning."

"Ez good a mornin' ez God ever made."

Giant Bluff, who prided himself on his atheism, began to swagger.

"That's stuff and nonsense. Only babies and fools believe such rubbish
nowadays."

"Thet so? Ain't no God, eh, and he never made no mornin's? Wal! Maybe
ye'll put me in the way of findin' out about quite a few little things
like that. I've hearn tell thet ye're goin' to shoot me, an' my
rheumatiz is so bad this summer thet I'd be obleeged if ye'd shoot me
right now an' hev it over."

"You--you insulted my wife," gasped Giant Bluff.

"Not a nary," protested Uncle Abram, with a touch of indignant color in
his weather-beaten cheeks. "I said I didn't know whether the lady thet
come to the door was your wife or not, an' no more I didn't. I hedn't
never seen her afore. But even s'posin' thet your morals didn't hurt
you none, do ye think I'd let it out to a stranger? No, siree; I'd a
kep my mouth shet, for the credit o' the town. An' now thet I've had my
say on thet little misunderstandin', ye kin shoot me ez soon ez ye
like."

The crowded platform roared for joy, the opportune train came in, and
G