y and want
somebody else to pay ye fer the privilege of workin'. Why don't ye work
yer-silves--ye loots? Sit around here expectin' some wan ilse to shovel
gould into yer hat. Ye'll pay me yer board--moind that," she ended,
making a personal application of her theories; "ivery wan o' ye."

If any lingering resolution remained in Bidwell's heart it melted away
as he listened to Mrs. Delaney's throaty voice and plain, blunt words.
Opening the door timidly, he walked in and without looking at the angry
woman seized upon his bundles, which lay behind the door.

The widow's voice rang out: "Where ye gawun wid thim bags?"

Bidwell straightened. "They're my bundles, I reckon. Can't a man do as
he likes with his own?"

"Not whin he's owin' fer board. Put thim boondles down!"

The culprit sighed and sat down on the bundles. Even young Johnson lost
his desire to laugh, for Bidwell looked pathetically old and discouraged
at the moment, as he mildly asked:

"You wouldn't send a man out in the night without his blankets, would
you?"

"I'd send a sneak to purgatory--if I c'u'd. Ye thought ye'd ooze out,
did ye? Nice speciment you are!"

Bidwell was roused. "If I had planned to sneak I wouldn't 'a' come into
the room with you a-standin' in the middle of the floor," he replied,
with some firmness. "You ordered me out, didn't you? Well, I'm goin'. I
can't pay you--you knew that when you told me to go--and I owe you a
good deal--I admit that--but I'm going to pay it. But I must have a
little time."

The other men, with a grateful sense of delicacy, got up and went out,
leaving Bidwell free space to justify himself in the eyes of the angry
woman.

As the door slammed behind the last man the widow walked over and gave
Bidwell a cuff. "Get _off_ thim boondles. Gaw set on a chair like a man,
an' not squat there like a baboon." She pitched his bundles through an
open door into a small bedroom. "Ye know where yer bed is, I hope! I do'
know phwat Dan Delaney w'u'd say to me, housin' and feedin' the likes o'
you, but I'll do it wan more summer--and then ye gaw flyin'. Ye hear
that now!"

And she threw the door back on its hinges so sharply that a knob was
broken.

Bidwell went in, closed the door gently, and took to his bed, dazed with
this sudden change in the climate. "She's come round before--and
surprised me," he thought, "but never so durn sudden as this. I hope she
ain't sick or anything."

Next morning at breakfast Maggie