you to handle it yourself, Aunty, and
then you and Uncle James would have all the profits. If you let some one
else publish it and sell it, you'd have only ten per cent, and even
then, you might have to pay part of the expenses."

"How much does it cost to print a book?"

"That depends on the book. Of course it costs more to print a large one
than a small one."

"That needn't make no difference," said Aunt Jane, after long
deliberation. "James has two hundred dollars sewed up on the inside of
the belt he insists on wearin', instead of Christian suspenders, ain't
you, James?"

"Yes'm, two hundred and four dollars in my belt and seventy-six cents in
my pocket."

"It's from his store," Mrs. Ball explained. "He sold it to a relative of
one of them heathen women."

"It was worth more'n three hundred," he said regretfully.

"Now, James, you know a small store like that ain't worth no three
hundred dollars. I wouldn't have let you took three hundred, 'cause it
wouldn't be honest."

The arrival of a small and battered trunk created a welcome diversion.
"Where's your trunk, Uncle James?" asked Ruth.

"I ain't a needin' of no trunk," he answered, "what clothes I've got
is on me, and that there valise has more of my things in it. When my
clothes wears out, I put on new ones and leave the others for some pore
creeter what may need 'em worse'n me."

Aunt Jane followed Joe upstairs, issuing caution and direction at every
step. "You can set outside now, Joe Pendleton," she said, "and see that
them hosses don't run away, and as soon as I get some of my things hung
up so's they won't wrinkle no more, I'll come out and pay you."

Joe obeyed, casting longing eyes at a bit of blue gingham that was
fluttering among the currant bushes in the garden. Mr. Ball, longing for
conversation with his kind, went out to the gate and stood looking up at
him, blinking in the bright sunlight. "Young feller," he said, "I reckon
that starboard hoss is my old mare. Where'd you get it?"

"Over to the Ridge," answered Joe, "of a feller named Johnson."

"Jest so--I reckon 't was his father I give Nellie to when I went away.
She was a frisky filly then--she don't look nothin' like that now."

"Mamie" turned, as if her former master's voice had stirred some old
memory. "She's got the evil eye," Mr. Ball continued. "You wanter be
keerful."

"She's all right, I guess," Joe replied.

"Young feller," said Mr. Ball earnestly, "do you chew terbacke