in' a bull calf to drink; that ain't what I call
a laughin' job. Jeemineezer! don't she hold that cantankerous little
buzzard's head down pretty. Whoa there, Calamity! don't you back into
the chicken corral. That's right, Idy, jam his head into the bucket, an'
set down on it--you're a daisy!"

III.

On the strength of Mose's friendly encouragement, Parker betook himself
next day to where Eben Starkweather was trimming greasewood roots, and
moved about sociably from one hillock to another while his neighbor
worked. Nothing but the ardor of unspoken love would have reconciled
Parker to the exertion involved, for Eben worked briskly, in spite of
his singularity of lung and the disadvantages of "asmy," and the
greasewood was not very thick on the ground he had been clearing. The
grotesque gnarled roots were collected in little heaps, like piles of
discarded heathen images, and Eben hacked about among them, a very
mild-mannered but determined iconoclast.

"I'll have to keep at it pretty studdy," he explained apologetically to
his visitor, "fer they say we're like enough not to have any more rain,
and I'm calc'latin' to grub out the vineyard before the ground hardens
up."

"Goin' to yank them vines all out, are ye?"

"That's the calc'lation."

Parker clasped one knee, and whetted his knife on the toe of his boot
reflectively.

"'Pears to me ye might sell off that vineyard, an' buy a strip t' other
side of ye, an' set out muscats."

"I couldn't sell that vineyard," said Eben. He had laid down his axe,
and was wiping his forehead nervously with an old silk handkerchief.

"Oh, I reckon ye could," said Parker easily; "ye got the whole place
pretty reasonable."

The little man's bearded mouth twitched. When he spoke, his voice was
high and strained.

"I'd jest as soon keep a saloon; I'd jest as soon sell wine to a man
after it's made as before it's made." He wiped the moist inner band of
his hat, and then dropped his handkerchief into it, and put it on his
head. Parker could see his grimy hand tremble. "I didn't know what I was
buyin'," he went on, picking up his axe, "but I'd know what I was
sellin'."

Parker glanced at him as he fell to work. He was a crooked little man,
and one shoulder was higher than the other; there was nothing aggressive
in his manner. He had turned away as if he did not care to argue, did
not care even for a response. Perhaps no man on earth had less ability
to comprehend a timid soul la