rst,--the big
boys waits till after you,--I don't aim to see you run over. Don't be
afeared, take all you need! Now Taulbee, Killis, Hose, Keats,
everybody,--dive in! Just eat all you can hold, and fill up your
bel--stummicks. I love to see folks eat and enjoy theirselves. No thank
you, I wouldn't choose none myself,--'druther see the rest eat! I spent
thirty cents on them crackers, and thirty-five on that 'ere sugar,--dag
gone, I reckon a man't works hard for his money's got the right to spend
it to suit him! Some folks haint fitten to live,--wants to eat up all
they git theirselves; but I like to pass around mine, I do,--it makes
me happy. What's the use of livin' if you can't make folks see a good
time? Gee-oh, I aim to make me a big grain of money this summer, so's I
can give a treat onct a month come next school; and I want every
man-jack of you, and ladies too, to come every time. Dad burn ole Heck,
generous never ruint nobody!"

Almost unable to believe my eyes and ears, I stood, murmuring to myself,
"And they say the day of miracles is past!"

Nucky alone was absent from the feast, visiting Blant. On his return,
there was a surprising change in his demeanor. He appeared to have shed
several years of age and care, played boisterously about the yard, got
into two or three fights, and a short while after we began reading
to-night leaped from his chair to the table, where he executed a wild
war-dance. All of which distressed me not a little, and seemed perfectly
unaccountable. The thought that he was sitting beside me, and leaning
his head on my shoulder, for probably the last time, was eating into my
heart; and his carelessness of the fact hurt me deeply. But of course
parting means little to the very young.

XXVIII

"KEEPS"

_Tuesday._

Going to the village on an errand after breakfast, when I reached the
deep mudholes where we always have to walk the fence some distance, I
was delighted to see a gang of men at work on the road, and to recognize
in them Blant and the other prisoners. They were picking the shale from
the mountain side, and shovelling it into the bottomless holes, and all,
save Blant, were hilariously happy to be out in the spring sunshine and
fresh air, and talked gaily with me and other passers-by, the keeper,
who leaned on his rifle, entering amiably into the conversation. He says
that every spring the prisoners are brought out to work on the
roads,--that it does them good, a