be I talkin' to, Bub? Why I'm talkin' to my friends."

"Friends?" I said.

"The friends I orto have had but ain't got. When I git lonesome I just
make up a lot o' folks and some of 'em is good comp'ny."

He loved to have me with him, as he worked, and told me odd tales and
seemed to enjoy my prattle. I often saw him stand with rough fingers
stirring his beard, just beginning to show a sprinkle of white, while he
looked down at me as if struck with wonder at something I had said.

"Come and give me a kiss, Bub," he would say. As he knelt down, I would
run to his arms and I wondered why he always blinked his gray eyes after
he had kissed me.

He was a bachelor and for a singular reason. I have always laid it to
the butternut trousers--the most sacred bit of apparel of which I have
any knowledge.

"What have you got on them butternut trousers for?" I used to hear Aunt
Deel say when he came down-stairs in his first best clothes to go to
meeting or "attend" a sociable--those days people just went to meeting
but they always "attended" sociables--"You're a wearin' `em threadbare,
ayes! I suppose you've sot yer eyes on some one o' the girls. I can
always tell--ayes I can! When you git your long legs in them butternut
trousers I know you're warmin' up--ayes!"

I had begun to regard those light brown trousers with a feeling of awe,
and used to put my hand upon them very softly when uncle had them on.
They seemed to rank with "sofys," albums and what-nots in their capacity
for making trouble.

Uncle Peabody rarely made any answer, and for a time thereafter Aunt
Deel acted as if she were about done with him. She would go around with
a stern face as if unaware of his presence, and I had to keep out of her
way. In fact I dreaded the butternut trousers almost as much as she
did.

Once Uncle Peabody had put on the butternut trousers, against the usual
protest, to go to meeting.

"Ayes! you've got 'em on ag'in," said Aunt Deel. "I suppose your black
trousers ain't good 'nough. That's 'cause you know Edna Perry is goin'
to be there--ayes!"

Edna Perry was a widow of about his age who was visiting her sister in
the neighborhood.

Aunt Deel wouldn't go to church with us, so we went off together and
walked home with Mrs. Perry. As we passed our house I saw Aunt Deel
looking out of the window and waved my hand to her.

When we got home at last we found my aunt sitting in her armchair by the
stove.

"You did it--didn't ye?-