e flits
by, as it were, when you meet a good conversationalist and get started
on various topics! Well, I guess like as not I better amble along over
toward the little shop and see if they ain't some little thing to be
puttered at round there. Yes, sir; all play and no work makes Jack a
dull boy, as the saying is."

The honest fellow achieved a few faltering paces in the general
direction of his shop. Then he turned brightly.

"A joke's a joke, all right; but, after all, I hate to see old Pete
working hisself into the grave that way, even if he ain't a regular
human being. Suppose you loaf over there and put him wise that the
Madam's been off the place since sunup. The laugh's on him enough
already."

Which showed that Uncle Abner had not really a bad heart. And I did even
as he had said.

* * * * *

Pete was instantly stilled by my brief but informing speech. He leaned
upon his axe and gazed at me with shocked wonder. The face of the
American Indian is said to be unrevealing--to be a stoic mask under
which his emotions are ever hidden. For a second time this day I found
tradition at fault. Pete's face was lively and eloquent under his shock
of dead-black hair--dead black but for half a dozen gray or grayish
strands, for Pete's eighty years have told upon him, even if he is not
yet sufficiently gray at the temples to be a hero in a magazine costing
over fifteen cents. His face is a richly burnished mahogany and tells
little of his years until he smiles; then from brow to pointed chin it
cracks into a million tiny wrinkles, an intricate network of them
framing his little black eyes, which are lashless, and radiating from
the small mouth to the high cheek bones of his race.

His look as he eyed me became utter consternation; then humour slowly
lightened the little eyes. He lifted the eyes straight into the glare of
the undimmed sun; nor did they blink as they noted the hour. "My good
gosh!" he muttered; then stalked slowly round the pile of stove wood
that had been spreading since morning. He seemed aggrieved--yet
humorously aggrieved--as he noted its noble dimensions. He cast away the
axe and retrieved some outflung sticks, which he cunningly adjusted to
the main pile to make it appear still larger to the casual eye.

"My good gosh!" he muttered again. "My old mahala she tell me Old Lady
Pettengill go off early this morning; but I think she make one big
mistake. Now what you know a