-case he must be some kind o' spook, an'
Gawd knows I ain't want to see no spook. Ef de bug ain't no spook, den
he mus' be eenside yo' haid, 'stead o' outside um, an' to hab bug on
de eenside o' yo' haid is de wuss kind o' bad luck. Anyhow, nobody but
Buckrah talk an' ack like dat, niggers is got mo' sense."

We found, presently, a ready and a steady sale for our extra stock. We
could supply caterpillars, butterflies and moths, or chrysalids and
cocoons; we had some rather scarce ones; and then, our unmounted
specimens were so perfect, and our mounted ones so exquisitely done,
that we had but little trouble in disposing of them. Under the hand of
John Flint these last were really works of art. Not for nothing had
he boasted that he was handy with his fingers.

The pretty common forms, framed hovering lifelike over delicately
pressed ferns and flowers, found even a readier market, for they were
really beautiful. Money had begun to come in--not largely, it is true,
but still steadily and surely. You must know how to handle your stock,
and you must be in touch with your market--scientists, students,
collectors,--and this, of course, takes time. We could supply the
larger dealers, too, although they pay less, and we had a modest
advertisement in one or two papers published for the profession, which
brought us orders. But let no one imagine that it is an easy task to
handle these frail bodies, these gossamer wings, so that naturalists
and collectors are glad to get them. Once or twice we lost valuable
shipments.

Long since--in the late spring, to be exact, John Flint had moved out
of the Guest Room, needed for other occupants, into a two-roomed
outbuilding across the garden. Some former pastor had had it built for
an oratory and retreat, but now, covered with vines, it had stood for
many years unused, save as a sort of lumber room.

When the troublesome question of where we might properly house him had
arisen, my mother hit upon these unused rooms as by direct
inspiration. She had them cleaned, repainted, scoured, and turned into
a pleasant well-lighted, airy workroom and living-room combined, and a
smaller and rather austere bedroom, with an inexpensive but very good
head of Christ over the mantel, and an old, old carved crucifix on the
wall beside the white iron bed. Laurence took from his own room a
Morris chair, whose somewhat frayed cushions my mother neatly
re-covered. Mary Virginia contributed a rug, as well as d