d in the kitchen box, no doughnuts in the crock, no pies on the
swing shelf in the cellar, an' the young ones goin' round without a
second shift to their backs!"

Cephas's mind was far away during this philosophical dissertation on the
ways of women. He could see only a sunny head fairly rioting with curls;
a pair of eyes that held his like magnets, although they never gave him
a glance of love; a smile that lighted the world far better than the
sun; a dimple into which his heart fell headlong whenever he looked at
it!

"You're right, father; 'tain't no use kickin' ag'in 'em," he said as he
rose to his feet preparatory to opening the Baxter store. "When I said
that 'bout trainin' up a girl to suit me, I kind o' forgot the one I've
picked out. I'm considerin' several, but the one I favor most-well,
I believe she'd fire up at the first sight o' training and that's the
gospel truth."

"Considerin' several, be you, Cephas?" laughed Uncle Bart. "Well, all
I hope is, that the one you favor most--the girl you've asked once
a'ready--is considerin' you!"

Cephas went to the pump, and wetting a large handkerchief put it in the
crown of his straw hat and sauntered out into the burning heat of the
open road between his father's shop and Deacon Baxter's store.

"I shan't ask her the next time till this hot spell's over," he thought,
"and I won't do it in that dodgasted old store ag'in, neither; I ain't
so tongue-tied outdoors an' I kind o' think I'd be more in the sperit of
it after sundown, some night after supper!"

XV. IVORY'S MOTHER

WAITSTILL found a cool and shady place in which to hitch the old mare,
loosening her check-rein and putting a sprig of alder in her headstall
to assist her in brushing off the flies.

One could reach the Boynton house only by going up a long grass-grown
lane that led from the high-road. It was a lonely place, and Aaron
Boynton had bought it when he moved from Saco, simply because he secured
it at a remarkable bargain, the owner having lost his wife and gone
to live in Massachusetts. Ivory would have sold it long ago had
circumstances been different, for it was at too great a distance from
the schoolhouse and from Lawyer Wilson's office to be at all convenient,
but he dreaded to remove his mother from the environment to which she
was accustomed, and doubted very much whether she would be able to care
for a house to which she had not been wonted before her mind became
affected. Here in