ur family now, Jake?" inquired Spectacle
John facetiously. "Got another carload shipped since I seen ye last?"

The company laughed heartily. The women of the village regarded the
Sawyers' large family as a serious problem, but the men treated it as a
huge joke.

"Aw, I bet my head any one o' yous would be glad to own a family half
as smart," remarked Jake proudly. "Golly, Miss Weir says that oldest
boy kin go through the 'rithmetic like a runaway team; an' as for the
girls, well, sirs"--Jake slapped his knee--"there jist ain't anythin'
they can't' do 'round the house, an' Hannah'll tell you the same."

"There don't seem to be much they can't do 'round the mill," grunted
Spectacle John, whose days were made weary routing his partner's family
from his place of business. "You won't raise that oldest boy if he
shows his face to me 'round the mill again, I promise you that."

"Speakin' o' mills," said William Winters, "when I was at Neeag'ra
Falls I seen a mill that you could put this whole village into an'
never notice it, an' it run by electricity, too."

The population of the milkstand settled more firmly into its place.
When the blacksmith got started on his favorite topic there was no
knowing when he might stop. He had visited the Toronto Exhibition and
Niagara Falls one autumn, and ever since had lived in the afterglow of
that achievement. Not the most astounding phenomena that the milkstand
could produce, either in song or story, but he could far surpass from
the wonderful experiences of that visit. The Niagara Falls mill was
only half finished when a new arrival interrupted.

"Fine night," said a voice with a deep Scottish burr.

"Fine," acquiesced the milkstand.

"Oh, and it will be you, Sandy?" said Uncle Hughie, making room for the
newcomer beside him. "Come away, man, come away."

Sandy McQuarry was a thick-set man, with a face like a Skye terrier.
He stood looking down at the contented, round-shouldered assembly, with
little columns of smoke curling up from pipes of peace, and his
disapproving brows bristled as though he were about to burst into loud
barking.

"Jeannie said ye wanted me," he remarked, by way of explaining his
presence. Sandy McQuarry was a busy man, and a great money-maker, and
did not want any one to think he could afford to spend his evenings in
idle gossip on a milkstand, as some folks did.

"Oh, yes, indeed, it would be very kind of you to be troubling. You
must jist