u to do?"

Denny Bolton sensed immediately more than half of what was behind the
question. He shook his head.

"No," he answered steadily. "No, because I'm going to try to tell her
again, myself, tonight. It's only partly because maybe I--I won't be
able to see her before I go--and part because she--she'd believe you,
somehow, I think, when she wouldn't believe any of the rest."

The white-haired old man sighed. His stiffened body slackened as he
shifted his feet against the stove.

"Why--why, I kinda hoped it was something like that," he murmured; and
he was talking more to himself than to Denny. "I kinda hoped it
was--but I never had no reason to believe it."

His voice lifted until it was its shriller, more natural falsetto.

"I wouldn't 'a' believed myself today, at twelve o'clock noon," he
stated flatly. "No, sir-e-e! After takin' stock of myself, as you
might say, the way I done this morning, I wouldn't 'a' believed myself
on oath!"

His feet dropped noisily to the floor, and he sat bolt upright again.

"But she's a-goin' to believe me! Godfrey, yes, she'll believe me when
I git through tellin' her!"

His pale eyes clung to the boy's face, tinged with astonishment before
so much vehemence.

"And ain't it kinda struck you--ain't it sorta come to you that
she wa'n't quite fair, either, any more than the rest of us,
a-thinkin'--a-thinkin' what she did, without any real proof?"

Young Denny did not have time to reply.

"No, I reckon it ain't," Old Jerry rushed on. "And I don't know's I've
got much right criticizing either. Not very much! I've been a tidy
hand at jedgin' other folks' matters until jest lately. Some way I
ain't quite so handy at it as I was. And I kinda expect she's goin' to
be sorry she even thought it, soon enough, without my tryin' to make
her any more so. She's goin' to be mighty uncomfortable sorry, if
she's anything like me!"

He rose and shuffled across to the door, and stopped there. Denny
could not understand the new thrill there was in his cracked voice,
nor the light in those pale eyes. But he knew that the old man before
him had been making something close akin to an eleventh-hour
confession; making it out of a profound thankfulness for the
opportunity. With the same gesture with which he bade the old man
wait, his big hand went inside his shirt, and came out again. And he
reached out and pressed something into Old Jerry's knotty fingers.

"I--I was sure you'd do it," he to