care of auks when
they was hatched. But there's a lot for me to do. There's maps to look
over, and time-tables; and I must be off. But I'll stop in to-morrer,
Abner, and we'll talk this over again.'

"When Pearson had gone, Abner sat and stared steadily at a knot-hole in
the floor. 'Mrs. B.,' he said to himself, 'has allus been a great one on
eggs. She's the greatest one on eggs I ever knowed. If she'd go in, now,
the thing 'u'd be just as good as done. When she knows what's ahead of
us she oughter go in. That's all I've got to say about it.'

"The significance of these reflections depended upon the fact that
Mrs. Batterfield had a small income. It was upon this fact that there
depended the other fact that there were three meals a day in the
Batterfield household. It was this fact, also, which was the cause of
Mr. Joe Pearson's visit to the library. He was very well acquainted with
Abner, although he knew Mrs. Batterfield but slightly; but he was aware
of her income.

"After reflecting for about twenty minutes or half an hour upon the
exciting proposition which had been made to him, Abner grew very
impatient. 'No use of my stayin' here,' he said; 'there's nobody goin'
to get out books in this hot weather; so I'll just shut up shop and go
home. I never did want to see Mrs. Batterfield as much as I want to see
her now.'

"'Libraries seem to shut up early,' said Mrs. Batterfield, as her
husband walked into the front yard.

"'Yes, they do,' said Abner, 'in summer-time.'

"All the way from town he had been rehearsing to himself the story he
was going to tell; but he hadn't finished it yet, and he wanted to get
it all straight before he began, so he walked over to the barn and sat
down on an inverted horse-bucket to get his story all straight before he
began. When he got it all straight he concluded not to tell it until
after supper. But when that meal was finished, and everything had been
cleared away, and Mrs. Batterfield had gone to sit on the front porch,
as was her evening custom, he sat down by her and told his story.

"He made the tale as attractive as he possibly could make it. He even
omitted the fact that Joe Pearson intended to sell his first eggs for
sixteen hundred dollars instead of eighteen hundred, and he diminished
by very many hundred miles the length of Joe Pearson's probable journey
to the north. In fact, had his suppositions been nearly correct, the
remaining specimens of the great auk would have