low an apple tree that
leaned over the girdling wall of the Smith place.

As Miss Lydia approached her landlord her heart came up in her throat;
it always did when she saw him, because she remembered the Olympian
thunders he had loosed on that awful night six years ago.

"How do?" said Mr. Smith. His dark eyes under bristling, snow-white
eyebrows blazed at her. He didn't notice the little boy.

"How do you do?" said Miss Lydia, in a small voice. She looked tousled
and breathless and rather spotted, and so little that Mr. Smith must
have felt he could blow her away if he wanted to. Apparently he didn't
want to. He only said:

"You--ah, never hear from--ah, my daughter, I suppose, Miss Sampson?"

"No, sir," said Miss Lydia.

"She doesn't care to visit me without her husband, and I won't have him
under my roof!" His lip lifted for an instant and showed his teeth. "I
see her when I go to Philadelphia, and she writes me duty letters
occasionally, but she never mentions--"

"Doesn't she?" said Miss Lydia.

"I don't, either. But I just want to say that if you ever need any--ah,
extra--"

"I don't, thank you."

Then, reluctantly, the flashing black eyes looked down at Johnny.
"Doesn't resemble--anybody? Well, young man!"

"Say, 'How do you do?' Johnny," Miss Lydia commanded, faintly.

"How do?" Johnny said, impatiently. He was looking over his apples and,
discovering some bruised ones, frowned and threw them away.

"Where did you get your apples?" said Mr. Smith.

"On the road," said Johnny; "they ain't yours when they drop on the
road."

"Say 'aren't,' Johnny," said Miss Lydia. "It isn't nice to say 'ain't.'"

"Why aren't they mine?" said the old man. He was towering up above the
two little figures, his feet wide apart, his hands behind him, switching
his cane back and forth like a tail.

"'Cause I've got 'em," Johnny explained, briefly.

"Ha! The nine-tenths! You'll be a lawyer, sir!" his grandfather said.
"Suppose I say, 'Give me some'?"

"I won't," said Johnny.

"Oh, you won't, eh? You'll be a politician!" Mr. Smith said.

"It isn't right to say, 'I won't,'" Miss Lydia corrected Johnny,
panting.

Mr. Smith did not notice her nervousness; the boy's attitude, legs wide
apart, hands behind him, clutching the tongue of his express wagon, held
his eye. "He's like me!" he thought, with a thrill.

"Isn't it right to say, 'I won't say I won't'?" Johnny countered.

"Jesuit!" Mr. Smith said, chuckling.