ill out his bag o' bones."

Just as Samantha's well-cooked viands began to disappear in Jabe's
capacious mouth (he always ate precisely as if he were stoking an
engine) his eye rested upon a strange object by the wood-box, and he put
down his knife and ejaculated, "Well, I swan! Now when 'n' where'd I see
that baby-shay? Why, 't was yesterday. Well, I vow, them young ones was
comin' here, was they?"

"What young ones?" asked Miss Vilda, exchanging astonished glances with
Samantha.

"And don't begin at the book o' Genesis 'n' go clean through the Bible,
's you gen'ally do. Start right in on Revelations, where you belong,"
put in Samantha; for to see a man unexpectedly loaded to the muzzle with
news, and too lazy to fire it off, was enough to try the patience of a
saint; and even David Milliken would hardly have applied that term to
Samantha Ann Ripley.

"Give a feller time to think, will yer?" expostulated Jabe, with his
mouth full of pie. "Everything comes to him as waits 'd be an awful good
motto for you! Where'd I see 'em? Why, I fetched 'em as fur as the
cross-roads myself."

"Well, I never!" "I want to know!" cried the two women in one breath.

"I picked 'em up out on the road, a little piece this side o' the
station. 'T was at the top o' Marm Berry's hill, that's jest where 't
was. The boy was trudgin' along draggin' the baby 'n' the basket, 'n' I
thought I'd give him a lift, so s' I, 'Goin' t' the Swamp or t' the
Falls?' s' I. 'To the Falls,' s' 'e. 'Git in,' s' I, ''n' I'll give yer
a ride, 'f y' ain't in no hurry,' s' I. So in he got, 'n' the baby tew.
When I got putty near home, I happened ter think I'd oughter gone roun'
by the tan'ry 'n' picked up the Widder Foss, 'n' so s' I, 'I ain't goin'
no nearer to the Falls; but I guess your laigs is good for the balance
o' the way, ain't they?' s' I. 'I guess they be!' s' 'e. Then he thanked
me 's perlite's Deacon Sawyer's first wife, 'n' I left him 'n' his folks
in the road where I found 'em."

"Didn't you ask where he belonged nor where he was bound?"

"'T ain't my way to waste good breath askin' questions 't ain't none o'
my bis'ness," replied Mr. Slocum.

"You're right, it ain't," responded Samantha, as she slammed the
milk-pans in the sink; "'n' it's my hope that some time when you get
good and ready to ask somebody somethin' they'll be in too much of a
hurry to answer you!"

"Be they any of your folks, Miss Vildy?" asked Jabe, grinning with
delight