eyes.

"You like fun--don't you?" he said.

"Have you got a snare drum?" Bim queried.

"No. What put that into your head?" Mr. Biggs asked, a little mystified.

"I don't know. I thought I'd ask. My Uncle Henry has a snare drum. That's
one reason we came to Illinois."

Mr. Biggs laughed. "That smile of yours is very becoming," he said.

"Did you ever dream of a long legged, brindle cat with yellow eyes and
a blue tail?" she asked, as if to change the subject.

"Never!"

"I wisht you had. Maybe you'd know how to scare it away. It carries on
so."

"I know what would fix that cat," said Mrs. Kelso. "Give him the hot
biscuits which you sometimes eat for supper. He'll never come again."

At this point Mr. Kelso returned with his gun on his shoulder and was
introduced to Mr. Biggs.

"I welcome you to the hazards of my fireside," said Kelso. "So you're
from St. Louis and stopped for repairs in this land of the ladder
climbers. Sit down and I'll put a log on the fire."

"Thank you, I must go," said Biggs. "The doctor will be looking for me
now."

"Can I not stay you with flagons?" Kelso asked.

"The doctor has forbidden me all drink but milk and water."

"A wise man is Dr. Allen!" Kelso exclaimed. "Cervantes was right in
saying that too much wine will neither keep a secret nor fulfill a
promise."

"Will you make me a promise?" Bim asked of Mr. Biggs, as he was leaving
the door with Ann.

"Anything you will ask," he answered.

"Please don't ever look at the new moon through a knot hole," she said in
a half whisper.

The young man laughed. "Why not?"

"If you do, you'll never get married."

"I mustn't look at the new moon through a knot hole and I must beware of
the flute and the snare drum," said Mr. Biggs.

"Don't be alarmed by my daughter's fancies," Kelso advised. "They are
often rather astonishing. She has a hearty prejudice against the flute.
It is well founded. An ill played flute is one of the worst enemies of
law and order. Goldsmith estranged half his friends with a grim
determination to play the flute. It was the skeleton in his closet."

So Mr. Eliphalet Biggs met the pretty daughter of Jack Kelso. On his
way back to the tavern he told Ann that he had fallen in love with the
sweetest and prettiest girl in all the world--Bim Kelso. That very
evening Ann went over to Kelso's cabin to take the news to Bim and her
mother and to tell them that her father reckoned he belonged to a very
rich an