ack 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin'
till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game,
such as meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o'
cattle--why, at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You
will be a noble and happy hunter.

[Illustration: "BUT FIT WITH THEIR TONGUES, FEARFUL."]

At the same time, if you hunt all day for faults you will come in at
night with sights of pelts. You will find what you hunt for, track 'em
right along and chase 'em down. Wall, Lodema never got led away from
her perticuler chase. She just hunted faults from mornin' till night,
and done well at it. She brought in sights of skins.

But oh! wuzn't it disagreeable in the extreme to Samantha, who had
always tried to bend her bow and bring down Beauty, to have her familiar
huntin' grounds turned into so different a warpath. It wuz disagreeable!
It wuz! It wuz!

And then, havin' to stand between her and Josiah too, wuz fearful
wearin' on me. I had always stood there in the past, and now in this
visit it wuz jest the same; all the hull time, till about the middle of
the fifth week, I had to stand between their two tongues--they didn't
fight with their hands, but fit with their tongues, fearful.

CHAPTER VII.

But along about the middle of the fifth week I see a change. Lodema
had been uncommon exasperatin', and I expected she would set Josiah to
goin', and I groaned in spirit, to think what a job wuz ahead of me, to
part their two tongues--when all of a sudden I see a curius change come
over my pardner's face.

I remember jest the date that the change in his mean wuz visible, and
made known to me--for it wuz the very mornin' that we got the invitation
to old Mr. and Miss Pressley's silver weddin'. And that wuz the
fifteenth day of the month along about the middle of the forenoon.

And it wuz not half an hour after Elnathen Pressley came to the door and
give us the invitations, that I see the change in his mean.

And when I asked him about it afterwards, what that strange and curius
look meant, he never hung back a mite from tellin' me, but sez right out
plain:

"Mebby, Samantha, I hain't done exactly as I ort to by cousin Lodema,
and I have made up my mind to make her a happy surprise before she goes
away."

"Wall," sez I, "so do."

I thought he wuz goin' to get her a new dress. She had been a-hintin'
to him dretful strong to that effect. She wanted a parmetty, or a
balze