I never did see.
Nobody'd think you were a day over fifteen."

"I'm not," said Red stoutly, "and,"
catching her chin in his hand and turning her face
up toward him--"Nobody'd put your score
much higher than that neither, if they trusted
to their eyes this morning."

The compliment hit so tender a place that
Miss Mattie lacked the resolution to tear it
out, besides, it was so honest that it sounded
much less like a compliment than a plain
statement of fact. She bent hastily over the fire.
"I'm glad I look young, Will," she said softly.

"So'm I!" he assented heartily. "What's
the sense in being old, anyhow? I'm as
limber and good for myself as ever I was, in spite
of my forty years."

"You're not _forty_ years old!" exclaimed
Miss Mattie. "You're joking!"

"Nary joke--forty round trips from flying
snow to roses since I hit land, Mattie--why,
you were only a little girl when I left
here--don't you remember? You and your folks
came to see us the week before I left. I got
a thrashing for taking you and Joe to the
millpond, and helping you to get good and wet.
The thrashing was one of the things that gave
me a hankering for the West. Very liberal
man with the hickory, father. Spare the
clothes and spoil the skin was his motto. He
used to make me strip to the waist--phee-hew!
Even a light breeze rested heavy on my back
when dad got through with me--say, Mattie,
perhaps I oughtn't to say so, now that he's
gone, but I don't think that's the proper way
to use a boy, do you?"

"No, I don't," said Miss Mattie. "Your
father meant well, but his way was useless and
cruel."

"I've forgiven him the whole sweep," said
Red. "But damn me! If I had a boy I
wouldn't club the life out of him--I'd try to
reason with him first, anyhow. Makes a boy
as ugly as anybody else to get the hide whaled
off his back for nothing--once in a while he
needs it. Boy that's got any life in him gets
to be too much occasionally and then a
warming is healthful and nourishing. Lord!
You'd think I was the father of my country
to hear me talk, wouldn't you? If somebody'd
write a book, 'What Red Saunders don't
know about raising children' it would be full
of valuable information--how's that breakfast
coming on?"

"All ready--sit right down, Will."

"Go you!" cried Red, and incautiously
flung himself upon one of the kitchen chairs,
which collapsed instantly and dropped him to
the floor.

"Mercy on us! Are you hurt?" cr