would not be expected to
hurt a fly, and would be allowed to go to church, read her Bible and
take care of her boy, she expressed her readiness to go away with him at
once. Mr. Newberry felt a few qualms of conscience in connection with
fly killing, but, having made an express stipulation that mosquitos and
black flies should not be included in the bond, he became easier in
mind, and said that, with Mrs. Carruthers and the Squire's permission,
he would drive her home in the afternoon. Mr. Johnson and the elder
Richards discussed local politics, and the tragedy calling for the
inquest; but Mr. Pawkins attached himself to the boys, and consequently
to the girls. This gentleman had brought his six feet of bone and
muscle, topped with a humorous face, from which depended a Lincoln
beard, from the States, and was now, for many years, as he said, "a
nettrelized citizen of Kennidy." This disappointment at the absence of
the constable was something pitiful, he did so want "to yank and rile
the old Britisher." Still, that was not going to deprive him of his
innocent amusement. He looked around the company and sized it up,
deciding that he would leave the old folks alone, and mercifully add to
them the crazy people; this still left him a constituency of nine, with
large possibilities for fun.

"Rufus," remarked Mr. Pawkins, "I seen your gal, Christy Hislop, along
o' that spry sot up coon, Barney Sullivan, daown at the mill. He's a
cuttin' you aout for sutten, yes sirree, you see if he ain't."

"What's the use of your nonsense, Mr Pawkins? Barney went home along o'
fayther and old man Hislop, and I guess he turned in to say we was all
right."

"If Andrew knowed you'd called him old man Hislop, he'd fire you aout o'
the back door mighty suddent. When I see a spry, set up, young feller
and a likely heifer of a gal a saunterin' through the bush, sort o'
poetical like, daown to the mill, it don't take me two shakes to know
that suthin's up. You're a poor, rejected, cast off, cut aout strip o'
factory cotton."

"What do you mean, Mr. Pawkins?"

"I mean overalls, and it's all over with you, Rufus." Having planted
this well-meant thorn in the breast of the younger Hill, and excited the
commiseration of his sisters, the lover of innocent amusement turned to
Ben, and asked that gentleman, whose attentions to Serlizer were most
open and above board, "sence when he got another gal?"

Mr. Toner turned angrily, and asked what Mr. Pawkin