felt better."

He then said that once, when a small boy, he had been taken with a
severe attack of pain, following a picnic when he had taken considerable
lemonade and pickles, followed by ice cream.

"I had forgotten it entirely," he went on. "But the other day Aunt Tish
recalled the incident, and suggested that I get my appendix out. It
wouldn't matter if she had let it go at that. But she's set on it. I may
waken up any morning and find it gone."

I could only stare at him, for he is her favorite nephew, and I could
not believe that she would forcibly immolate him on a bed of suffering.

"I used to think she was fond of me," he continued. "But she's--well,
she's positively grewsome about the thing. She's talked so much about it
that I begin to think I _have_ got a pain there. I'm not sure I haven't
got it now."

Well, I couldn't understand it. I knew what she thought of him. Had she
not, when she fell out of the tree, immediately left him all her
property? I told him about that, and indeed about the entire incident,
except the secret in the barn. He grew very excited toward the end,
however, where we met the blackberry-cordial person, and interrupted me.

"I know it from there on," he said. "Only I thought Culver had made it
up, especially about the gun being levelled at him, and the machine in
the creek bed. He's on my paper; nice boy, too. Do you mean to say--but
I might have known, of course."

He then laughed for a considerable time, although I do not consider the
incident funny. But when I told him about Mr. Culver's impertinent
question at the recruiting station, he sobered.

"You tell her to keep her hands off him," he said. "I need him in my
business. And it won't take much to send him off to war, because he's
had a disappointment in love and I'm told that he walks out in front of
automobiles daily, hoping to be struck down and make the girl sorry."

"I consider her a very sensible young woman," I observed. But he was
already back to his appendix.

"You see," he said, "my Aunt Letitia has a positively uncanny influence
over me, and if I have it out I can't enlist. No scars taken."

I put down my knitting.

"Perhaps that is the reason she wants it done," I suggested.

"By George!" he exclaimed.

Well, that _was_ the reason. I may as well admit it now. Tish is a fine
and spirited woman, and as brave as a lion. But it was soon evident to
all of us that she was going to keep Charlie Sands safe if