ir on them ears! Beautiful scald," he said, clutching his
hand full of bristles and beaming with pride. "Never see anything finer.
Here, Bub, a pail of hot water, quick! Try one of them candlesticks!
They ain't no better scraper than the bottom of an old iron candlestick;
no, sir! Dum your new-fangled scrapers! I made a bet once with old Jake
Ridgeway that I could scrape the hair off'n two hawgs, by gum, quicker'n
he could one. Jake was blowin' about a new scraper he had....

"Yes, yes, yes, dump it right into the barrel. Condemmit! Ain't you got
no gumption?... So Sim Smith, he held the watch. Sim was a mighty good
hand t' work with; he was about the only man I ever sawed with who
didn't ride the saw. He could jerk a crosscut saw.... Now let him in
again, now, _he-ho_, once again! _Rool him over now_; that foreleg needs
a tech o' water. Now out with him again; that's right, that's right! By
gol, a beautiful scald as ever I see!"

Milton, standing near, caught his eye again. "Clean that ear, sir! What
the devil you standin' there for?" He returned to his story after a
pause. "A--n--d Jake, he scraped away--_hyare_!" he shouted suddenly,
"don't ruggle the skin like that! Can't you see the way I do it? Leave
it smooth as a baby, sir--yessir!"

He worked on in this way all day, talking unceasingly, never shirking a
hard job, and scarcely showing fatigue at any moment.

"I'm short o' breath a leetle, that's all; never git tired, but my wind
gives out. Dum cold got on me, too."

He ate a huge supper of liver and potatoes, still working away hard at
an ancient horse trade, and when he drove off at night, he had not yet
finished a single one of the dozen stories he had begun.

III

But pitching grain and hog-killing were on the lower levels of his art,
for above all else Daddy loved to be called upon to play the fiddle for
dances. He "officiated" for the first time at a dance given by one of
the younger McTurgs. They were all fiddlers themselves,--had been for
three generations,--but they seized the opportunity of helping Daddy and
at the same time of relieving themselves of the trouble of furnishing
the music while the rest danced.

Milton attended this dance, and saw Daddy for the first time earning his
money pleasantly. From that time on the associations around his
personality were less severe, and they came to like him better. He came
early, with his old fiddle in a time-worn white-pine box. His hair was
neatl