fe, was younger and less intelligent, and preferred to talk
to Mrs. Thomas. It is distracting to listen at the same time to three
persons; but I learned that "You kin make anything that's made out
o' wood with a draw knife;" and over the bench was the frame for an
upholstered chair. A driver brought in a two-horse, side seated,
depot wagon on three wheels and a fence rail. The fourth wheel and its
broken tire were in the wagon; and the blacksmith said he'd weld the
tire at five-thirty the next morning.

We went without breakfast to see him do it. He was my heroine's father
by that time; a candidate for the legislature; and I was devising for
him a second comedy daughter, to play opposite to the boy with a draw
knife. That day I also found the drug-store window and the "lickerish"
boxes that Cummings should break through in his attempted escape; and
I recovered the niggers, the "dog fannell," the linen dusters, and the
paper collars which, in my recent prosperity, I'd forgotten. I also
nominated Goodwin for the legislature, which increased his importance,
and gave him something to sacrifice for the girl's father. But it was
all so poverty-stricken, as I glimpsed it through the blacksmith shop
and the little house I'd chosen for its consort. I yearned for some
money; not much, but enough to afford "a hired girl," and for some
means of bringing the money into the story. When we left Bowling
Green, I had given Goodwin a substantial reward for the robber's
capture; but he wouldn't accept it. That was a mere dramatist's
device; and my quiet sheriff was already above it; besides, he wasn't
sure that he'd hold the fellow. His wish to please the girl was
already debating the matter with his duty.

On the way back to St. Louis, the conductor, who took our tickets,
recognized me. Charlie Church had been a freight brake-man when I was
in the St. Louis yards. He was proud of his advancement to a passenger
conductorship--proud of his train--proud of the new Wabash road-bed
on the single track line. This road-bed was made of macadam-looking
metal, clean and red as the painted bricks in the local Dutch women's
gardens, and hard as flint. When we gave the right-of-way, and ran in
on a siding, Church brought us up a few pieces to the back platform;
and with one of them scratched my initials on the glass window.
"What was it, iron ore?--no, that mud that the river leaves when it
rises--'Gumbo' the people call it. Some fellow found by acc