ght of
her cousin's figure, and running to meet him.

"Halloo, young man," was grandpa's greeting. "I hear you have been
having a set-to with Nathan Keener. It isn't the first time that he has
had a fisticuffs with a member of this family. He and I used to be
continually at it when we were boys together."

"Oh, but isn't he much older than you, grandpa?" said Edna, in
surprise. "He looks like a very, very old man."

"And I don't? That's a nice compliment, missy. No, he and I are about of
an age, and went to school together in the little, old, red schoolhouse
that was burned down some years ago. It is ill health and trouble that
makes him look so old, I suppose. Poor old chap, he has lost most of the
friends who would have stood by him, for he has taken such an attitude
it is impossible to be on good terms with him."

"Ben thinks he used to play baseball," spoke up Edna. "Did they play it
so many, many years ago?"

Her grandfather laughed. "They certainly did, and he was tremendous at
it. Let me see, forty, fifty years ago isn't so long, and I can well
remember the time the Overlea boys beat the Boxtown boys, and it was all
because of Nat Keener's good playing. The Boxtown fellows thought all
they had to do was to walk in and win, but we gave them a big surprise
that day. I remember how we cheered and, after the game was over,
carried Nat around the village on our shoulders."

Ben smiled and nodded as if this event came within his recollection,
too. Edna looked at him in surprise. "Why, Ben," she said, "you weren't
there."

Ben laughed. "No, but I heard about it all years ago, and it came to my
mind to-day when I was having it out with Nathan. I'll venture to say he
is thinking more of those old times, at this very minute, than he is of
his troubles."

"Poor old Nat," grandpa shook his head. "He was as high-spirited a young
chap as ever lived, but uncontrolled and always fighting against the
pricks. It must be pretty hard for him, pretty hard. He has grown so
morose and snappish that no one takes the trouble to do more than nod
to him nowadays. He wasn't a bad sort, too free and open-handed, too
fond of pleasure, maybe."

"He doesn't have much chance to indulge himself there in these days,"
remarked grandma.

"False friends, a worthless wife and a bad son have about finished up
what he had. With good money after bad all the time there is nothing
left but that little tumbledown house he lives in."

"What do