dismay. The handle was fairly good
but the steel part was broken in half and practically worthless.

"Reckon Wesley, my eldest son, must have been using it. He's always
trying to 'make something.' I think he'll be a great inventor by and
by. But really, it doesn't seem hospitable--it _isn't_, to let you or
any other guest work. I can manage very well, very well, indeed. You
can sit and read. We have a Shakespeare--what the children haven't
destroyed--a Bible, and two volumes of Scott. We're real proud of our
library and I keep it in my wedding chest. I have to, the children are
so bright and inquiring."

"Too inquiring I think! 'Tain't healthy for 'em to be quite so smart!"

Jim laughed, shouldered his hoe, and marched away across the little
strip of grass between the house and garden--so-called. The ground for
this Lucetta's feeble hands had dug with a spade that matched in
condition the hoe Jim had found. Melon seeds had been sown there and
had duly sprouted. But the "inquiring" minds of the children had daily
pulled them up to see if there were any melons at the root. The
potatoes had received the same treatment, the corn ditto, and the
wonder was that even a few plants had survived their efforts to "make
'em grow faster."

Now here was Saint Augustine "helping" to transplant the celery which
had until now escaped culture at their hands.

Jim worked as he had never done even in all his active young life. His
heart ached with pity for the little woman who faced her hard life so
bravely and so happily, and he was revolving many plans to help her,
and to a greater extent than a few days of farm labor could do.

"'Cause I say, I know somethin'."

"Well, what is it, Sainty?"

"Ain't 'Sainty', but 'Au--gus--tine'. Say it nice, like Mamma does. She
cried last night."

"Never!"

"Yep, she did! She cried an' she talked to herself right outside the
winder where I sleep. She kep' callin' 'Corny! Corny! come home!' Just
that way she said it and he didn't answer a word. Corny's my papa,
don't you know? He goes off times and stays an' Wesley says my mamma
gets scared he will be killed with his gun. Say, I'm goin' to run away
and find him. I am so. Don't you tell. But I am. I'm goin' to find
that monkey cage and I'm going to travel all around the world and show
'em to folks for money. That's what my papa said, that morning when we
let 'em out and he went away. He said, my papa said: 'Suppose younkers
we start a circus