ards to make him so ornery. I'm bound to
suppose he has 'em, or he wouldn't act so dum like it. So I says, go
slow and gentle before puttin' a black brand on any feller; as my mother
used to say, never say a bad thing till ye ask, 'Is it true, is it kind,
is it necessary?' An' I tell you, the older I git, the slower I jedge;
when I wuz your age, I wuz a steel trap on a hair trigger, an' cocksure.
I tell you, there ain't anythin' wiser nor a sixteen-year-old boy, 'cept
maybe a fifteen-year-old girl.

"Ye'll genilly find, lad, jest when things looks about as black as they
kin look, that's the sign of luck a-comin' your way, pervidin' ye hold
steady, keep cool and kind; something happens every time to make it all
easy. There's always a way, an' the stout heart will find it.

"Ye may be very sure o' this, boy, yer never licked till ye think ye air
an' if ye won't think it, ye can't be licked. It's just the same as
being sick. I seen a lot o' doctorin' in my day, and I'm forced to
believe there ain't any sick folks 'cept them that thinks they air sick.

"The older I git, the more I'm bound to consider that most things is
inside, anyhow, and what's outside don't count for much.

"So it stands to reason when ye play the game for what's inside, ye win
over all the outside players. When ye done kindness to Hoag, ye mightn't
a meant it, but ye was bracin' up the goodness in yerself, or bankin' it
up somewher' on the trail ahead, where it was needed. And he was
simply chawin' his own leg off, when he done ye dirt. I ain't much o'
a prattlin' Christian, but I reckon as a cold-blooded, business
proposition it pays to lend the neighbour a hand; not that I go much on
gratitude. It's scarcer'n snowballs in hell--which ain't the point;
but I take notice there ain't any man'll hate ye more'n the feller that
knows he's acted mean to ye. An' there ain't any feller more ready to
fight yer battles than the chap that by some dum accident has hed the
luck to help ye, even if he only done it to spite some one else--which
'minds me o' McCarthy's bull pup that saved the drowning kittens by
mistake, and ever after was a fightin' cat protector, whereby he lost
the chief joy o' his life, which had been cat-killin'. An' the way they
cured the cat o' eatin' squirrels was givin' her a litter o' squirrels
to raise.

"I tell ye there's a lot o' common-sense an' kindness in the country,
only it's so dum slow to git around; while the cussedness and mea