? It was so late when I came out of
Mrs. Beaseley's, I ran right home."

"I seed her," her cousin said gloomily.

"How air her poor eyes?" asked Aunt 'Mira.

"They're not poor eyes. They're as good as anybody's eyes," Marty
cried, with exasperation.

"Wal--they say she's' goin' blind again," said tactless Aunt 'Mira.

"I say she ain't! She ain't!" ejaculated Marty. "All foolishness. I
don't believe a thing them doctors say. She's got just as nice eyes as
anybody'd want."

"That is true, Marty," Janice said soothingly; but she sighed.

The door was open, for the evening was mild. On the damp Spring breeze
the sound of a husky voice was wafted up the street and into the old
Day house.

"Hello!" grunted Uncle Jason, "who's this singin' bird a-comin' up the
hill? Tain't never Walky a-singin' like that, is it?"

"It's Walky; but it ain't him singin'," chuckled Marty.

"Huh?" queried Uncle Jason.

"It's Lem Parraday's whiskey that's doin' the singin'," explained the
boy. "Hi tunket! Listen to that ditty, will ye?"

"'I wish't I was a rock
A-settin' on a hill,
A-doin' nothin' all day long
But jest a-settin' still,'"

roared Walky, who was letting the patient Josephus take his own gait up
Hillside Avenue.

"For the Good Land o' Goshen!" cried Aunt 'Mira. "What's the matter o'
that feller? Has he taken leave of his senses, a-makin' of the night
higeous in that-a-way? Who ever told Walky Dexter 't he could sing?"

"It's what he's been drinking that's doing the singing, I tell ye,"
said her son.

"Poor Walky!" sighed Janice.

The expressman's complaint of his hard lot continued to rise in song:

"'I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't sleep,
I wouldn't even wash;
I'd jest set still a thousand years,
And rest myself, b'gosh!'"

"Whoa, Josephus!"

He had pulled the willing Josephus (willing at all times to stop) into
the open gateway of the old Day place. Marty went out on the porch to
hail him.

"'I wish I was a bump
A-settin' on a log,
Baitin' m' hook with a flannel shirt
For to ketch a frog!

"And when I'd ketched m' frog,
I'd rescue of m' bait--
An' what a mess of frog's hind laigs
I _wouldn't_ have ter ate!'"

"Come on in, Walky, and rest your voice."

"You be gittin' to be a smart young chap, Marty," proclaimed Walky,
coming slowly up the steps with a package for Mrs. Day and his book to
be signed.

The odor of spirits was wafted be